Loblaws Enacts Plastic Bag Fee

Canada is always brimming with news on the plastic bag front, and today is no different. Today, Canadian supermarket chain Loblaws has, of their own accord, enacted a 5-cent plastic bag fee. What’s more, the changeover was met with acceptance and the air of a resolve to change for the better.

At a Loblaws store in downtown Toronto yesterday, on the eve of the grocery chain’s new policy of charging Torontonians 5 cents for every plastic bag, Kate Wharton was packing an impressive tree-hugger status symbol: a biodegradable poop-scooping bag. “It’s the right thing to do,” said Ms. Wharton, accompanied by Brooklyn, her four-year-old Rottweiler.

Yes, finally someone understands! Folks in Canada see this action by the supermarket chain to be a big factor when it comes to how the issue has been handled so far and how it will be handled in the future.

Although it’s not the first retailer to institute a fee for plastic bags, some see the Loblaws program as a tipping point in the battle against the disposable bag. “They should have done it long ago,” said Ms. Wharton, who works as a naturopath, and tries to bring her own bags every time she shops. “It tells people that it’s time to get serious.”

The company itself has stated its belief that this small and simple change will drastically reduce the amount of plastic bags used by consumers every day. It’s a shame it has to come down to finances, but even shoppers understand that sometimes negative enforcement is the only way things get done.

[Cathy Pearl, university dean] was accompanied by her son, Jeff Appleby, who agreed with her sentiments, even though he was carrying his groceries in plastic bags. “We can’t keep living like this,” he said. “You have to charge people to change their behaviour. It’s the only thing that works.”

There’s only one dark spot in this bright and optimistic story — that the enthusiastic (or at least accepting) sentiment wasn’t carried on a hundred percent:

Not everyone was ready to accept the new bag fees. “I spend $300 a week at Loblaws,” said Maria Rocha, a homemaker. “Now they want me to pay for the bags, too? And what are you supposed to do when your dog poops if you don’t have any bags?”

Ah well, perhaps some people never learn.

Monday, January 12th, 2009 at 1:39 pm and is filed under The Daily. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.