VICTORIA—I confess, I’m one of those shoppers who used plastic bags. I walk to the grocery store and pharmacy, so they were convenient, especially if I bought more than anticipated or happened to be passing by and didn’t have a reusable bag with me.

Like many, we kept our plastic bags and used them for garbage and other stuff. I figured they weren’t really single use. Still, I knew I was responsible for some of the billions handed out in Canada each year and that mine would wind up sitting in the municipal landfill.

I was also all too aware of the enormous cost of single-use plastic pollution to the environment, polluting oceans and waterways, killing wildlife, as destructive as they are indestructible. I had once stood in front of a long barbed-wire fence in a windswept area outside Beijing so covered in discarded bags that they looked like love locks, placed there as a reminder of the poisonous relationship between disposable items and Mother Nature.

But as long as plastic bags were handy and on-offer, I would use them if necessary.

That all changed on July 1, 2018, when the City of Victoria moved ahead with a ban, stopping stores from handing out or selling plastic bags to customers. Within weeks, they were gone, replaced by paper ones you had to pay 15 cents for (25 cents now) or $1 for a reusable bag.

It did create some funny moments as myself and others, having forgotten a reusable bag, tried to see how many items we could safely juggle back home (fewer than you think) or spring for a paper one, but it was a surprisingly smooth transition. I never saw any customers complain, and within months it was odd to step into a store in another area and see plastic bags again.

So in a matter of weeks, a municipal initiative altered my behaviour in a positive way. I quickly grew to appreciate the ban and was happy to see several other communities across Canada doing the same.

Fittingly enough, I was in the grocery store this week when I noticed a news alert saying B.C.’s appeal court had overturned Victoria’s ban. I knew the Canadian Plastic Bag Association was challenging it (and has fought it all along), but the reversal of a lower court decision still came as a surprise. The issue was one of jurisdiction. The city had used its powers to regulate businesses to impose the ban, but a judge ruled that, while the intentions were reasonable, it was an environmental matter and needed provincial approval.

“The city did not set out to prohibit some types of checkout bags and encourage other types in order to interfere with or somehow improve business transactions,” Justice Mary Newbury wrote.

“Rather, it set out to slow down and ultimately end the harm caused by plastics in waterways both local and global.”

So, now what?

The Retail Council of Canada says the ruling could set a precedent that will impact similar bylaws in other B.C. communities, including several on Vancouver Island, such as Tofino, Saanich and Qualicum Beach, so there are calls for local governments to be given more power by the province to protect the environment in their communities.

The federal government is looking at a Canada-wide ban on single-use plastics by as early as 2021, but has yet to determine what items will be on the list or how it could be implemented.

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Victoria’s mayor, Lisa Helps, estimates the ban has already reduced the number of plastic bags entering the municipal dump by millions and says the city will review the decision. It can appeal to the Supreme Court of Canada or ask the Ministry of Environment for the approval it didn’t seek at the outset.

Helps says no matter what, she hopes and expects businesses and consumers here will continue abide by the now struck-down ban. So far, plastic bags have not reappeared in local stores. Even if they do, I won’t be tempted to use them again. I’ve long known it was the right thing to do, I just needed a little push.