After a morning chasing waves on Tofino’s pristine beaches, a lineup stretched out the door of the Common Loaf Bake Shop on Saturday. But no one was reaching for a plastic bottle of water to quench their thirst, the single use plastics are not sold here or hardly anywhere in Tofino anymore, said Common Loaf staff member Lee McNamee.
“The majority of people are really enjoying the bottled water ban and they’re using reusable bottles and we’re helping people fill up their own bottled water here,” McNamee told CHEK News.
“So it came from the community and we ran with it,” said District of Tofino Mayor Dan Law on Saturday.
According to Law, the voluntary ban has been gaining traction for years, and has taken off as a growing mess of the bottles are washing up on Tofino’s beaches and filling up this area’s landfills.
“We get over 750,000 visitors in Tofino alone. So we see the garbage that’s generated,” said Law.
Previous single-use plastic bans in Tofino have led to change provincewide. The west coast community already advocated to the B.C. government to allow for bans of single-use plastic bags, straws and take out cutlery and boxes, and many other B.C. communities have since followed with their own bans.
“We’ve got some of the best water on earth to drink, it comes from Meares Island, Tribal Parks, you know there’s just no need to drink out of a plastic bottle,” said Law.
“Now that that [previous bans] legislation is in place, we’re just hoping that tweaks won’t be that hard,” said Law.
Mando Levette said its environmental protection like this that bring her all the way from California to surf here.
“Banning all these single use plastics, absolutely,” Levette told CHEK News on Saturday.
Skye Ryan
