Maple Ridge Coun. Craig Speirs wants the plastic stickers off apples, oranges and bananas to make it easier for composting.
He proposed that the senior governments be asked to change regulations and require both domestic and imported fruit producers instead to use vegetable-based ink or compostable stickers.
Speirs said the plastic stickers pose a problem for backyard composters because the plastic labels contaminate the finished soil product.
“So they end up as a problem for people who do residential composting.”
They can also contaminate commercial-based composting products.
Speirs’s request was supported by the rest of Maple Ridge council March 20 and will be forwarded as a resolution to the Lower Mainland Local Government Association then to the Union of B.C. Municipalities.
If there’s enough support, the UBCM will endorse it and pass it on to the provincial government, which could respond with legislation.
Maple Ridge council agreed on four other resolutions: requiring criminal record checks for local politicians; requiring and enabling schools to provide training for Naloxone administration for overdoses in schools; ending discriminatory pricing for insurance premiums for those with mental illness; and improving access for those with dogs.
