Vancouver seeks ideas to stem tide of cups, containers and bags

The City of Vancouver says it's serious about tackling one of the most ubiquitous items involved in modern life in the city: disposable cups, containers and bags.

To address the issue, it's created a temporary storefrontat 511 West Broadway whereresidents cansubmit their ideason how to prevent coffee cups, and other items, from landing inlandfills.

In June,officials released a report showing that 2.6 million disposable cups windup in the trash in Vancouver every week. Two million plastic bags are thrown out every week as well.

"That is a lot of waste," said resident Sharon Lazare, who went to the Broadway location Saturday to offer ideas on how the city should deal with the garbage.

The city saysdisposablecupsmake up 22 per cent of garbage collected from streets.

The problemcosts the citymillions of dollars a year to dispose of, and harms the environment, say officials.

At least recycle it

"I think that people don't know that they can recycle[the cups], so that's one thing we'd like to get the word out about," said Monica Kosmak, a project manager for the city's zero waste program.

Since releasing its reportabout the amount of cups, food containers and bags that end up in the garbage, the city has been collecting ideas from residents and businesses on a strategy to deal with the problem.

"We can create a community and a plan that is accessible, affordable and comes up with creative options for convenience, but without the waste," said Kosmak.

City councillors have said part of the solution could include aban on items such as styrofoam, which takes up a lot of space in the garbage stream and is not easy to recycle.

But officials admit any solution will have to consider potential harm to businesses, namely food providers, which rely oncontainers.

Another ideaincludesa refundable deposit on coffee cups.

• Revolution in a coffee cup

The Broadway Street storefront opened on Saturday and will continue until Dec. 7. For hours click here.

Staff like Kosmaksay the plan is to report a waste reduction strategy to council sometime in 2018.

The City of Vancouver has anaction plan, which includes strategies toreduce the amount of solid waste that goesto landfills or incinerators by 50 per cent from2008 levels.

In the meantime Kosmak says if residents must use disposable coffee cups they should:

• Dispose of them by putting them in on-street recycling bins.
• Takethem back to stores which accept them.
• Or bringthem home to put intheir blue box recycling bins.

With files from Nic Amaya.