Just over a year after it came into effect, locals are not supportive of the city's single-use cup fee.
The $0.25 fee per cup was implemented in 2022 in an effort to encourage people to use reusable cups in the city. However, it has served to be an unpopular policy with nearly 75 per cent of locals wanting to see it repealed, according to a poll run last week by Vancouver Is Awesome.
When including people from outside the area, who don't have to pay the fee on a regular basis, support for the fee was a little higher, but not much, with 70 per cent of the total vote being against the fee.
Only about 1-in-5 locals support the fee and don't think it should be repealed. Another 6 per cent are indifferent.
Coun. Rebecca Bligh tried to kill the fee last year, but her motion failed. Now she has a new one in front of the new council, which is dominated by her own ABC party,
"After a year — initially as well — it's quite clear the top-down-stick approach was fraught with unintended consequences," she previously told Vancouver Is Awesome. "And there's very little change in consumer behaviour."
Council will vote on Bligh's motion on Feb. 14.
V.I.A. polled 772 readers and asked the question: Do you think the single-use cup fee should be repealed?
The poll ran from 2/9/2023 to 2/14/2023. Of the 772 votes, we can determine that 402 are from within the community. The full results are as follows:
Results are based on an online study of adult Vancouver Is Awesome readers that are located in Vancouver. The margin of error - which measures sample variability - is +/- 3.53%, 19 times out of 20.
Vancouver Is Awesome uses a variety of techniques to capture data, detect and prevent fraudulent votes, detect and prevent robots, and filter out non-local and duplicate votes.
