The Town of Devon is proud to announce the appointment of its Single-Use Waste Reduction Task Force to help reduce the Town’s waste footprint and explore ways for Devon to become a more sustainable community.

The Task Force is comprised of five Devon residents, one member of Devon Council and the Town’s Environment and Sustainability Coordinator and will meet monthly starting in September.

The mandate for the Task Force is to assist the Town with community engagement and the development of a strategy for eliminating single-use retail plastic bags from distribution in Devon, while exploring additional waste reduction options that the Town could consider for the future.

“With the global recycling market changing and more plastic going to our landfills, we all need to find ways to reduce our reliance on single-use plastics,” said Ray Ralph, Mayor for the Town of Devon. “We hope that by working with the community through the new Single-Use Waste Reduction Task Force, we can develop a cohesive strategy to reduce plastic waste that works for both our residents and business community.”

An estimated 1.34 million plastic retail bags are used in Devon annually and nearly 3 billion are used across Canada every year.

“Many businesses are moving away from the distribution of plastic retail bags including Sobeys who will no longer offer plastic bags in Canada as of January 2020,” said Andy Tchir, Environment and Sustainability Coordinator for the Town of Devon. “I am looking forward to working with the Task Force and hearing their ideas for building a more sustainable Devon.”

Learn more about the Town’s efforts to reduce single-use waste at devon.ca/single-use.

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For more information contact:

Justin Janke
Communications Coordinator
Town of Devon
P: 780-987-8302
E: JJanke@devon.ca

Andy Tchir
Environment and Sustainability Coordinator
Town of Devon
P: 780-987-8333
E: ATchir@devon.ca