A group of Kwantlen University College students has had its request to speak before the Vancouver city council denied, according to a media release.

Bring a Bag Everywhere, founded by Kwantlen students, has been working this summer to educate the public on the environmental impacts of plastic shopping bags. Recently, the group has been concentrating its efforts on the Vancouver city council, trying to have a proposal for a $0.15 “lifecycle charge” on single-use shopping bags put on the agenda.

Amber Daniels, a spokesperson for BABE, told the Georgia Straight that her organization has been lobbying the council for a couple of months, to no avail.

“Since May”¦we’ve sent emails to all the councillors, we’ve had phone conversations with them, we’ve written letters to the mayor’s office, and we’ve talked face-to-face with [councillor] Heather Deal,” Daniels said.

On July 11, the Straight reported that BABE members attended the Vancouver Folk Music Festival, where they promoted the bag tax and collected signatures on a petition.

The petition has received close to 1,000 signatures since May, according to Daniels.

The City of Vancouver does not allow groups to present ideas to council unless a councillor supports the group’s issue being raised. BABE has tried and failed with all of the city councillors to have the plastic bag tax added to a meeting’s agenda, BABE’s media release said.

Councillor Peter Ladner told the Straight that given the limited amount of resources the City of Vancouver has, there are simply better issue to address than plastic bags.

“They asked how they could best make the case for a plastic-bag tax. And I suggested that they go to the waste committee of the GVRD, which is where these things are dealt with,” Ladner said. “That is the best place and the first place they should go.”

Ladner also claimed that although plastic bags are a highly visible aspect of the waste stream in Vancouver, they actually comprise only a very small portion of the city’s waste.

Daniels said that apart from the Council’s decision, the public’s response to BABE’s campaign has been overwhelming.

BABE was at Commercial Drive’s Car Free Day June 22 and collected over 250 signatures there, Daniels said. “So just in the small four or five events that we’ve gone to, we have close to a 1,000 signatures.”

“We’re not going to stop petitioning because of this”, she added. “Next up is to mail our actual proposal [to the council], so that before they deny our idea again, they can actually read about it. And we’re going to send them our petition along with that."

Look for BABE representatives at the Mission Folk Music Festival July 27-29 and outside Mountain Equipment Co-Op stores throughout Vancouver, where they’ll handing out flyers and promoting their cause.