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More than two million plastic bags, 2.6 million paper coffee cups, and countless foam takeout food containers are thrown out each week in Vancouver.

“It kind of takes your breath away,” Coun. Andrea Reimer said of the figures, which appear in an administrative report that council will consider at a meeting on Tuesday. “You don’t realize how much that adds up.”

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As part of its push to become the greenest city in the world, Vancouver is looking at ways to reduce the number of single-use items that end up in landfills.

In 2011, the city set a goal of reducing the amount of solid waste by 50 per cent from 2008 levels by the year 2020. The most recent data, from 2015, shows that total waste has decreased by 27 per cent, or 129,000 tonnes, since 2008. The city is also planning to become a zero-waste community by 2040.

In February 2016, council directed city staff to begin reviewing regulatory options for addressing distribution, use and recycling of single-use items to help it meet its goals.