Councillors here were pleased to hear a pair of petitions from a local high school student.
Sarah Hennekens came to council Monday night seeking some control over growth and the extension of the provincial greenbelt, and also to ask that the township ban plastic bags.
She easily passed her first hurdle by getting unanimous consent from council to be heard as a delegation, after missing the deadline for registering as a delegation. That deadline is noon on the Wednesday before the council meeting.
She needed five votes in order to speak, and got all six.
Hennekens explained she is a grade 10 student at Centre Wellington District High School, and a member of the environmental club there. The school held an Environmental Week on the second last week of April, and she got the idea for the two petitions.
She said the area “wrapping around the western part of Lake Ontario – the Greater Golden Horseshoe, is now one of the fastest growing areas in North America. The population is expected to increase from almost eight million to about 11 million over the next 30 years.
“It will be a significant challenge to accommodate this rapid increase of population without sacrificing the value and character of the region’s countryside, open space, and rural communities.”
Hennekens said to accommodate that rapid increase, the Greenbelt was created with the purpose to protect environmentally sensitive land and farmland from urban development. She said it currently protects 1.8-million acres of countryside and the Greenbelt is being considered for expansion.
The students of CWDHS signed her petition to have the Greenbelt expanded to include Puslinch, Guelph-Eramosa, and Centre Wellington Townships and Erin, which, the petition stated, “will be the only effective way to limit urban sprawl.
Hennekens said she had time to visit only six classes at school with her petition, and she obtained 298 signatures for that petition. When it comes to controlling population growth, she suggested, “Let’s not wait for the provincial or federal government. Fergus and Elora have already suffered urban sprawl.”
In her second petition, Hennekens stated that “500 billion plastic bags are consumed around the world every year. It is estimated that as a society, we used one million bags per minute. Those bags are unnecessary garbage that will accumulate and clutter our planet for up to a thousand years.”
That petition added, “They not only fill our our landfills, but they are also the cause of 100,000 sea turtles and other marine animals deaths every year.
The petition asked that the township “seriously consider banning plastic bags in our community.”
Hennekens said she obtained 254 signatures for that petition, but it had been circulated for a shorter time than the one about the Greenbelt.
Mayor Joanne Ross-Zuj said the petitions were “great petitions to take to the county.” It is already wrestling with population forecasts. The mayor added she would be at solid waste services the next day, and that would be a good place to consider the plastic bag petition.
Hennekens had noted that one municipality in Manitoba had banned plastic bags, but it has a population of only 700, and she said it would be nice of a township the size of Centre Wellington could be the first in Ontario to ban them.
San Francisco has banned all plastic grocery bags in that city, but that ban does not include plastic garbage bags.
Ross-Zuj said the petitions are “two wonderful initiatives. You can certainly make a difference.”
Councillor Bob Foster, too, had praise for Hennekens’ enterprise.
“It’s very refreshing that young people are advocating for initiatives like this,” he said.
