At least some of the money retailers take in from the City of Toronto’s 5-cent plastic bag fee should go toward planting trees, says Councillor Michelle Berardinetti.

Berardinetti (Ward 35, Scarborough Southwest) represents the most tree-barren ward in Scarborough and would like to turn that around.

But she said the city doesn’t have the multi-millions needed to expand the tree canopy and replace ash trees lost to the emerald ash borer, which is expected to kill most of the city’s estimated 860,000 ash trees by 2017.

So, she’s pushing for a tree summit this fall of tree advocates, government and industry representatives to increase pressure for action.

Retailers are entitled to pocket the plastic bag fee, introduced in Toronto in June 2009, to encourage people to go with re-usable cloth bags.

“For the retailers, it’s a revenue source,” she said. “They’re making millions of dollars.”

Berardinetti, a member of the parks and environment committee, thinks people would appreciate seeing at least part of the money funding an environmental program like tree-planting.

“We have to work on the tree canopy, especially with the emerald ash borer,” she said. “We have to take action, and these are the kinds of creative solutions I think residents expect of us.”

Gardening personality Mark Cullen told councillors on the parks and environment committee that people don’t think about trees until they’re gone.

Cullen urged people to think of a city they like and how they would feel if it had no trees.

“When I imagine Boston and the Boston Common and the city generally minus its trees — thanks very much, I really have no interest in visiting,” he said.

“In the absence of a city’s tree canopy, we have concrete, asphalt and steel, and this world which humans have created for ourselves, which is not part of the natural world. Trees connect us to the real, natural world.”