How soon will plastic bag fees become the norm?

By Jason Buckland, Sympatico / MSN Finance

Once upon a time, your local university’s health clinic wasn’t the only place you could get your hands on free plastic.

But that was then, and now – in the midst of another major grocery chain announcing it will start taxing the use of its single-use shopping bags – you might not be able to find the material for free any longer.

Grocery giant Metro, which operates about 600 stores in Ontario and Quebec, has said it will charge five cents per bag at all checkouts starting June 1.

By doing so, they will join the ranks of Loblaws and Sobeys (even though Sobeys only levies the fee in Ontario) as major retailers to adopt the tax.

Yet while we might have predicted other grocery stores would jump on the plastic charge bandwagon, the date of Metro’s free bag ban is significant for a whole other reason.

June 1 is the same day the City of Toronto will begin to force stores, not just supermarkets, to charge for single-use plastic bags.

And while it’s, admittedly, only one city, the Star says environmentalists think the rest of Canada will soon follow suit.

“I think after the city of Toronto’s program is implemented, you’ll see it across the board,” the Recycling Council of Ontario’s executive director tells the newspaper.

“Especially for the national chains, they don’t tend to launch programs … by jurisdiction, they tend to do it nationally. It’s easier for them.”

Of course, there’s naturally a bit of resistance to the movement away from plastic bags. While the left-leaning Toronto was sure to act accordingly, it turns out Calgarians, for example, don’t want to be pushed around on the issue.

A “wide-ranging city report” shown in the Calgary Herald says that charging a tax on plastic shopping bags (or even banning them altogether) would be wildly unpopular, going so far as to suggest the change would be “legally hard to justify.”

Well, it turns out that report only registered feedback from a mere 300 Calgarians, so it’s tough to put a lot of weight into its findings. Still, you have to admire the city’s will.

While cutting back on the waste of landfill-clogging bags is a no-brainer, maybe banning them altogether isn’t exactly the right course of action. People do, believe it or not, re-use these bags and, when it boils down to it, should probably have the choice as to which type of material they want to shove their $200 of groceries in every other week.

But, how long will that remain the case?

Comments

Please remember we used to put our garbage unbagged into metal garbage cans. We can't do that anymore as the garbage collectors will not take un bagged garbage. We used to have paper bags but the environmentalists didn't like that because it killed to many trees. Trees that can be grown again. So now they have us, we have to use plastic bags to put our garbage in and we can't get free plastic bags anymore???? There are far too many environmentalists in this country and on this planet. Where do they put their garbage? They probably throw it on somebody else's property.

We have been paying for bags in Ontario for a long time now Nofrills ,Price choppers food basics have been charging for their bags since they opened no that is nothing new. I guess the big grocery store want more money. I guess they will have to put boxes out instead of plastic.I guess I will put my garbage in boxes so the animals can get into it and I have to clean it up. I can just here the garbage collector now I will not lift that up it is to heavy. LOL. The powers that be better come down to the little people and listen to them for a change.

Will someone come up with some scientific facts re the plastic bag? I reuse mine for garbage; therefore, I do not have to purchase the department store variety for such. If you measure the quality of the grocery store bag against the one you buy to put your garbage in, you will see that the department store bag is of much better quality; therefore, one would assume would take a greater amount of time to die in the landfill. With business, it is very much about appearances and it seems that the grocery stores are jumping on the look-at-us bandwagon to show its customers how environmentally aware they are. They are really putting the onus on the customer to make THEMSELVES LOOK GREAT! As an afterthought, I have observed raw meat being placed into these reusable bags, some of which are made of material. Has anyone given any thoughts as to what germs are growing in these bags after the raw meat juices have leaked into them? Are all of you environmentally-conscious people faithfully washing out your reusable bags and disinfecting them?

Environmentalist = moron

I see these people at the grocery store loaded up with their "green" re-usable bags, then purchase these "kitchen catcher" PLASTIC bags to bag their garbage. LOL.

If plastic bags are someday going to be banned, the bylaws will need to be changed in order to put raw, unbagged barbage at the curb. Better yet, find some bleeding heart environmentalist and dump it in their backyard.

I am so incredibly tired of the greed, it makes me sick. I agree that we need to do something about global warmingand pollution, but the general public can not be expected to make all the sacrifices at the expense of our ever thinning pocket books. If governments were actually interested in green ideas they could: turn off unnecessary lighting when government workers have gone home and encourage businesses to do the same. In areas other than metropolitans, provide usable bus service from 5am until 2am. Offer places for people to ride their bikes to get where they need to go other than sidewalks and the road with traffic, force manufacturers to reduce packaging etc. . Making people buy plastic bags and saying they are being green is the same as collecting customers money for a charity then claiming that they are being charitable. In case these businesses had not noticed I paid the money, I was being charitable or green or whatever, not them. As time goes by it has become it has become clear that customers and little people are being increasingly taken for granted of by big business and government, what would happen if we stopped buying. I think from now on I will start buying used and very basics only, maybe these guys will notice I count then, anyone care to join me.

when i was a kid, i watched my uncle grumble about do-gooders....while he dumped his old motor oil down the rain gutter.

two blocks away, canadian tire had a free place to dump the oil. but, you know, it was a pain in the @rse to change, and the earth was fine bla bla bla grumble grumble, stupid do-gooders were going to make him waste gas disposing used oil, and if everyone had to drive to get rid of oil...isn't that more pollution? bla bla bla

he would be proud to see that his approach is being perpetuated right here on these posts.

when i was a kid, i watched my uncle grumble about do-gooders....while he dumped his old motor oil down the rain gutter.

two blocks away, canadian tire had a free place to dump the oil. but, you know, it was a pain in the @rse to change, and the earth was fine bla bla bla grumble grumble, stupid do-gooders were going to make him waste gas disposing used oil, and if everyone had to drive to get rid of oil...isn't that more pollution? bla bla bla

he would be proud to see that his approach is being perpetuated right here on these posts.