Just last week the Toronto City Council announced two big policies that will help all Torontonians Do Good for the environment. The first one, effective immediately, is to ban the sale and distribution of bottled water at City Hall and civic centres across the G.T.A. By 2011, this ban will transfer to other city-owned facilities.

The second environmentally-sound motion councillors voted on was a $0.05 fee on plastic bags. Starting June 1, 2009, retailers will be required to accept reusable bags and containers in lue of retailer-supplied bags. The final tally was 30 in favour of the bag and bottle measures, 13 against.

Here is the Mayor’s reasoning from TheStar.com:

Mayor David Miller said “free” shopping bags come at a cost. “There’s a cost to the city and the people of Toronto in disposing of them, there’s a cost to the environment and there’s a cost to the retailers,” he said after the vote…

Miller defended the move [on the bottled water ban], arguing that the city produces its own high-quality water. “I don’t believe as Canada’s largest purveyor of tap water we should be selling water in our facilities,” he said.

Critics, however, suggest laws to enforce such measures are unnecessary and will hurt the economy:

Some councillors argued the new rules go too far. Councillor Karen Stintz argued for a voluntary bag fee, saying a compulsory one is unnecessary because the city will accept plastic bags in its recycling program starting next week. But Councillor Howard Moscoe said voluntary fees would be useless.

Councillor David Shiner said banning water in city-owned theatres like the Sony Centre will hurt their revenue, and workers will likely have to give away tap water in plastic cups.

Torontonians: What do you think about these decisions by the City of Toronto?

Do Gooders from around the world: Does your city have these types of laws? What do you think about it?