MONTREAL -- A ban on single-use plastic bags is now in place in 18 municipalities in the Eastern Townships.
The municipalities in the Val-Saint-François region include:
- Bonsecours
- Cleveland
- Kingsbury
- Lawrenceville
- Maricourt
- Melbourne Canton
- Racine
- Richmond
- Saint-Claude
- Saint-Denis-de-Brompton
- Sainte-Anne-de-la-Rochelle
- Saint-François-Xavier-de-Brompton
- Stoke
- Ulverton
- Valcourt Ville
- Valcourt Canton
- Val-Joli
- Windsor
The regulations does allow for some exceptions: bags for bulk products, tire packaging, products already packaged by an industrial process, dry cleaning bags and bags containing advertising material distributed door-to-door.
About 30,000 people live in the region, which is near Sherbrooke.
Sherbrooke and Beaconsfield have also announced they will ban plastic bags starting in April.