On February 20, 2019, Parksville council had a three-page bylaw in front of it, No. 1549, the Single-Use Checkout Bag Reduction Program Bylaw. It would have stopped shops from handing customers plastic bags, while still allowing them for loose fruit and nuts, nails and screws, frozen meat, flowers, bakery goods and prescriptions. Four months earlier the city had told residents the ban would start on March 1. At third reading the bylaw lost 6-1. The fight was about bags, but it ran into the bigger fact behind every search for a Parksville landfill: the city does not have one, and what happens to its garbage is decided by the Regional District of Nanaimo.
How a ban was announced before it passed
The idea began at council on Monday, April 16, 2018, when Coun. Mary Beil reminded the chamber that Earth Day fell that Sunday. She moved that staff "investigate options to adopt a ban" on single-use plastic bags at the point of sale. She cited an online city survey from late 2017 in which roughly 80 per cent of respondents backed reducing plastics in general and about 60 per cent backed a ban on single-use bags. Her motion passed 5-1 without discussion. Coun. Teresa Patterson, a restaurant owner and caterer who uses compostable bags in her own business, was the vote against.
Qualicum Beach was already ahead. Its council had given first reading to its own bag bylaw on March 19, 2018, and Beil pointed to a "neighbouring community" as a model.
In October 2018 a notice submitted by the City of Parksville appeared in the local paper under the headline that single-use retail plastic bags would be banned from March 1, 2019. It said the $150 fine would be postponed until March 1, 2020, to give businesses time, and that the city would run an education campaign in the meantime. CHEK News repeated the March 1 date in December 2018. The draft that went to council in February was still titled as a 2018 bylaw.
Who argued what on February 20, 2019
Only Coun. Adam Fras voted for it. He told council that bans on single-use plastic would spread across the country and the world as governments tried to curb ocean pollution.
Mayor Ed Mayne led the opposition on jurisdiction. "I have a real problem with city council getting involved in issues not pertaining to the city, as soon as you do this you're opening up a can of worms… where does it stop?" he said. If it was a major issue, he added, the federal and provincial governments needed to act, not municipalities. Coun. Al Greir agreed that regulating "private enterprise" was not council's job.
Coun. Doug O'Brien made a practical case. A hardware store owner had told him that federal rules require pesticides and herbicides to be sold in a sealed plastic bag. He also said he walks by the ocean in Parksville every day and has never noticed plastic pollution. "We don't have a problem here," he said. Coun. Mark Chandler said shoppers were already being asked whether they wanted a bag and charged five cents for one, and that people could police themselves. Coun. Marilyn Wilson said she had struggled with the issue, suggested an education campaign instead and left the door open to "revisit another bylaw down the road."
The letter to Ottawa
Mayne followed up in writing. On April 24, 2019, he asked Catherine McKenna, then federal minister of environment and climate change, for national rules on plastics. "There are 162 municipalities in B.C., not including regional districts, and if each city enacts its own plastic bag ban, this would create 162 different sets of regulations for businesses to follow," he wrote. The letter argued that the city lacked the money to develop, promote and enforce its own ban. Gord Johns, the Courtenay-Alberni MP, told the paper he had suggested the letter at a meeting with council.
What came of it: a patchwork, then a provincial rule
Mayne's complaint about a patchwork turned out to describe the next five years. Qualicum Beach went ahead: since July 1, 2019, its businesses have not been allowed to provide plastic checkout bags or plastic straws, and the town counts biodegradable plastic as plastic. The town estimated each resident used about 200 bags a year.
In November 2019, CBC reported that only a handful of B.C. communities had followed Victoria, most of them small and on Vancouver Island, and that Victoria's own bylaw was in doubt after the B.C. Court of Appeal ruled against it that July. Lilly Woodbury of the Surfrider Foundation called the result a "patchwork of policies" and wanted one provincial standard. The province said it was working on recommendations under its CleanBC plastics plan.
Nanaimo took the long road. Council asked staff for a bylaw in December 2017, consulted businesses and residents in 2019, and gave three readings in October 2020. The Checkout Bag Regulation Bylaw then went to the provincial environment minister, who approved it on February 12, 2021; council adopted it unanimously on February 22 and it took effect on July 1, 2021. Parksville does not appear on the province's list of municipalities with their own single-use plastics bylaw. Nanaimo's other council fights are collected under Civic Nanaimo.
It did not need one in the end. Since July 15, 2024, the provincial Single-Use and Plastic Waste Prevention Regulation has barred businesses across B.C. from providing single-use plastic shopping bags, compostable plastic ones included, and requires a minimum charge of 25 cents for a new paper bag and $2 for a new reusable bag. The rule Parksville council voted down in 2019 now applies in Parksville anyway, set by the level of government Mayne said should set it. If you shop in Parksville one day and Nanaimo the next, the checkout bag rules you meet are now the province's.
The RDN garbage plan behind the bag fight
The bag debate was a small piece of a much larger plan. On June 26, 2018, the RDN board approved a new Solid Waste Management Plan aiming to divert 90 per cent of waste from the landfill. The Nanaimo News Bulletin put the history in numbers: in the 1980s the region buried 1,084 kilograms of waste per person a year; by 2014 it was 347 kilograms, or 68 per cent diversion, and 90 per cent would mean 109 kilograms. The report found organic waste made up 42 per cent of what went to the dump, paper 15 per cent and plastic 13 per cent.
Two tools were meant to do most of the work. Mandatory waste source separation would force businesses, institutions and apartment buildings to sort garbage, recycling and organics, and waste hauler licensing would bring private haulers under rules and fees. The Bulletin reported projected costs of $373,000 a year for the first and $469,000 for the second, and an increase of about $10 per person a year for taxpayers. Alec McPherson, the Area A director who chaired the select committee, said the plan took about three years to compile and expected it to be fully in place by 2021. "We do all the bylaws and those go back to the government for approval, so it's not a simple process," he said.
He was right about the process. The plan went to the environment minister on July 3, 2018, and was approved on March 3, 2020, according to the RDN. The hauler licensing bylaw went to the province in February 2022 and was approved in April 2024. The separation bylaw went to the office of the Minister of Municipal Affairs in December 2021, and the RDN had to obtain the authority before its board could adopt it. Both were scheduled to start in January 2025, the separation rules on January 1 with six months to get bins in place. The RDN's 2024 review says the delay kept tipping fee revenue higher than planned, since the diversion it was meant to drive had not yet arrived.
Where Parksville garbage goes
The physical answer is two sites. Curbside garbage from Parksville, Qualicum Beach, Lantzville, Snaw-Naw-As First Nation and the electoral areas goes either to the Church Road Transfer Station at 860 Church Road in Parksville or straight to the Regional Landfill at 1105 Cedar Road, about five kilometres south of downtown Nanaimo. Church Road is busy: the RDN said in 2022 that it sees an average of 300 to 350 vehicles a day, counting commercial haulers, curbside trucks and residents. The RDN contracts out the hauling of garbage, organics and yard waste from the station. Seven priority invasive plants are kept out of the curbside carts and must go to the landfill instead. Dumping outside these sites, which went on around Parksville for years, is reported to the provincial RAPP line at 1-877-952-7277 or to RDN bylaw enforcement.
The landfill predates the region's first waste plan, approved in 1988, by four decades. Its first cell opened in 1946 and works by natural attenuation, with a leachate interceptor added in 1991 and 1992; a second, lined cell with leachate collection and treatment began in 1991. Gas wells and trenches collected and flared 2,937,592 cubic metres of landfill gas in 2023. The 2024 review gives the site about 22 years of remaining life, and says compacting waste more densely with a shredder could push closure into the early 2050s. Burning was proposed once, in 2014, when Metro Vancouver considered Duke Point for a waste-to-energy plant and Nanaimo council voted against it.
Where it stands now
The review, dated December 9, 2024, is the latest full account. It found the RDN still had one of the lowest disposal rates in the province, and the lowest of any regional district in 2021 at 395 kilograms per person. But the trend ran the wrong way: 397 kilograms in 2018 and 431 in 2023. Staff blamed pandemic shopping habits and waste from construction, renovation and demolition of older homes. Estimated diversion was 67 per cent in 2022 and 63 per cent in 2023, well short of 90. The Recycle BC depots in Parksville and Qualicum Beach closed in March 2020, and the review links the fall in recycling recovery partly to having fewer depots.
The 2022 waste composition study, the region's third, found plastics made up 16.2 per cent of the garbage headed for the landfill. The plan report the board adopted in 2018 had put plastic at 13 per cent. The two studies may not have measured in the same way, so the gap is a question for the next study rather than a settled trend, and neither the bag rules nor the separation bylaw has yet been tested against it.
Questions
Does Parksville have its own landfill?
No. Parksville's garbage goes through the Regional District of Nanaimo's Church Road Transfer Station at 860 Church Road and is trucked from there to the Regional Landfill at 1105 Cedar Road, south of downtown Nanaimo. The Cedar Road site is the region's only landfill.
Did Parksville ever ban plastic bags?
Not with its own bylaw. The city announced a ban for March 1, 2019, but council defeated the bylaw at third reading on February 20, 2019. Plastic checkout bags were banned in Parksville only when the provincial regulation took effect on July 15, 2024.
Are plastic bags banned in Qualicum Beach?
Yes. Qualicum Beach's Single-Use Item Regulation Bylaw stopped businesses from handing out single-use plastic checkout bags and plastic straws from July 1, 2019. The bylaw counts biodegradable plastic bags as plastic bags.
How much does a paper bag cost in a Parksville store now?
Under the provincial rules in force since July 15, 2024, a business must charge at least 25 cents for a new paper shopping bag and $2 for a new reusable one. Bags for produce or bulk food inside the store are not counted as shopping bags and can still be free.
What is the RDN's waste diversion target?
The 2018 Solid Waste Management Plan aims for 90 per cent diversion, which works out to 109 kilograms of garbage per person per year. The RDN estimated its actual diversion at 67 per cent in 2022 and 63 per cent in 2023.
When does the Regional Landfill near Nanaimo fill up?
A 2024 review commissioned by the RDN gave the landfill about 22 years of remaining life. The same review says denser compaction with a waste shredder could stretch that into the early 2050s, and more diversion would extend it further.
What is mandatory waste source separation?
It is an RDN bylaw in effect from January 1, 2025, that requires businesses, institutions and multi-family buildings to have separate containers for garbage, recycling and organics. Properties were given six months from that date to get their bins in place.
Where did the Parksville recycling depot go?
The Recycle BC depots in Parksville and Qualicum Beach closed in March 2020, according to the RDN's 2024 plan review. The review links the closures, along with changes in shopping habits, to a drop in recycling recovery in the region.
Who collects garbage in Parksville?
The Regional District of Nanaimo runs curbside collection for single-family homes in Parksville, Qualicum Beach, the District of Lantzville, Snaw-Naw-As First Nation and the electoral areas. Apartments, condos and businesses use private haulers.
Why did Parksville council vote against the bag ban?
Mayor Ed Mayne argued that plastics should be regulated by the federal and provincial governments rather than by each city. Other councillors said consumers should decide, that some businesses are required to use plastic, or that the city did not have a plastic pollution problem.
Sources
- Parksville council initiates look into plastic bag ban, Parksville Qualicum Beach News, 2018-04-20
- Single-use retail plastic bags to be banned in Parksville March 1, Parksville Qualicum Beach News, 2018-10-18
- Ban on single-use plastic bags to be considered by Esquimalt council, CHEK News, 2018-12-03
- City of Parksville Bylaw No. 1549: a bylaw to regulate the sale of single-use plastic checkout bags (draft, council agenda), City of Parksville, 2019-02-20
- Parksville council won't ban single-use plastic bags, Parksville Qualicum Beach News, 2019-02-21
- Parksville council requests national regulations on single-use plastics, Parksville Qualicum Beach News, 2019-05-01
- Plastic Bag Ban, Town of Qualicum Beach
- Victoria moved to ban plastic bags almost 2 years ago. Why have so few B.C. cities followed suit?, CBC News, 2019-11-15
- Reducing Single Use Checkout Bags in Nanaimo, City of Nanaimo
- Municipal bylaws for single-use plastics, Government of British Columbia
- Single-Use and Plastic Waste Prevention Regulation, Government of British Columbia
- RDN targets 90 per cent diversion with new solid waste management plan, Nanaimo News Bulletin, 2018-07-04
- RDN's Solid Waste Management Plan Recognized for Innovations, Regional District of Nanaimo, 2020-06-05
- RDN Five-Year Plan Effectiveness Review, Regional District of Nanaimo, 2024-12-09
- Solid Waste Locations, Regional District of Nanaimo
- Service Alert: Church Road Transfer Station, Transfer Building Repairs, Regional District of Nanaimo, 2022-08-04
- 23-021 Church Road Transfer Station Hauling Services, Regional District of Nanaimo, 2023-03-24
