City of Toronto plans five-cent bag fee

[Arash]

Originally Posted by e30jones

They have reuseable bags already. Just that most people are too lazy or forgetful to bring them to the store when they shop. So now if they have to pay 5 cents for a bag, they might just remember to bring the bag that they have already paid for.

Incenerators would be a good idea to dispose of waste, but I'm pretty sure that the ash that they create is 10x more toxic than the garbage they burn. This ash has to be disposed of in a landfill, and although it will save room, it's much more difficult to deal with.

The problem with plastic bags is that even though they are recyclable, there is not a good market for their repurchase. And those that get thrown out, never decompose. I worked at a landfill as a heavy equipment operator for a summer job. Trust me, I have seen excavated garbage that was over 30 years old, looked like it was garbage from last week.

I am all for the 5 cent bag fee, it should be done everywhere. It seems like the only way to effect change is to hit people where it counts, their pocketbooks.

very true. ash and air pollution are the biggest obstacles for incineration.

there's also composting, which imo is the best way but takes a long time. u cant really compost plastic bags though.

[Fel]

7 - are you saying that the 5c per bag you would be saving is a higher cost than the gas to get you there and back?

[sirex]

they gotta start hitting condos/apartments with higher garbage fees so that there is incentive for them to start cleaning up their act. buildings are amongst the worst when it comes to their ways because people dont care what they throw down the chute.

[Fel]

Bahaha.....

http://www.thestar.com/article/545132

Loblaws to take bag fee national

Says it'll start charging nickel-a-bag in Toronto on Jan. 12 – but denies move is a cash grab
Nov 28, 2008 04:30 AM
John Spears
city hall bureau

Loblaws says it will leapfrog over Toronto's plans to impose a 5-cent charge on plastic shopping bags next summer and start charging the fee at all Toronto stores on Jan. 12 – and nationally in April.

But grocery industry officials insist the bag fee negotiated with the city isn't a bid for profit.

"There's no grab for cash in any of this," said Nick Jennery, chief executive of the Canadian Council of Grocery Distributors, which argued for the fee rather than the city's plan to force retailers to pay customers 10 cents to bring their own bags.

"The definition of success for this thing is to collect not one nickel. ... We want people to bring their own bags into the store. That's the objective."

Both Loblaws and Sobeys have pledged that any excess revenue from the bag fee will be donated to environmental non-profit causes. They did caution, however, that the charge won't produce a gush of profits for environmental causes, because retailers will be spending heavily on publicity, staff training and checkout redesign to accommodate reusable bags.

Toronto officials say about 460 million plastic shopping bags are given out each year in Toronto, about half by grocery stores.

The stores get to keep the fee, so if city council approves the proposal next week they could collect an extra $23 million in revenue a year, all things being equal. But the assumption is that all things won't be equal, as the grocers have promised to reduce plastic bag use by 70 per cent by 2012.

Neither Sobeys nor Loblaws would say what environmental causes they'll support.

Councillor Brian Ashton said the city should have negotiated an agreement with the big stores to direct excess bag revenue to a foundation or trust fund jointly controlled by the stores and the city. That measure should be part of the motion Mayor David Miller presents, he added.

Councillor Glenn De Baeremaeker, who chairs the works committee, said discussion of where revenue might go misses the main point, which is that the city has wrung an agreement from industry to eliminate hundreds of millions of bags a year.

Inge van den Berg, vice-president of Loblaws, said her company is redesigning the table behind the cashier to accommodate reusable bags.

Loblaws will take the pledge a step further by instituting a 5-cent bag charge in all its stores nationwide starting April 22 – Earth Day, van den Berg said.

Loblaws has already sold 14 million of its reusable bags and estimates it will have reduced its use of plastic bags by 300 million by the end of the year.

An official of Metro (formerly Dominion) stores, which like Loblaws and Sobeys belongs to the council of grocery distributors, wouldn't say what the company will do with extra revenue. She referred inquiries to the council.

But Jennery said he couldn't comment for Metro.

[StikiGreenZ]

Originally Posted by Arash

and what effect would that have on the plastic bag producers and workers?

Who the hell cares? I'm so sick and tired of people always worrying about workers...

Can i start a company making asbestos or other stuff bad for the environment and keep doing it cause i have workers?

Get another job.

[europrince]

^ I never would have figured that Loblaws would get in on this ahead of the bylaw. They are an upscale store. Free bags is part of the service.

[europrince]

Originally Posted by sirex

they gotta start hitting condos/apartments with higher garbage fees so that there is incentive for them to start cleaning up their act. buildings are amongst the worst when it comes to their ways because people dont care what they throw down the chute.

I hope they don't, as I live in a condo. That said, as with any common element, there is no personal accountability.

[Fel]

Originally Posted by StikiGreenZ

Who the hell cares? I'm so sick and tired of people always worrying about workers...

Can i start a company making asbestos or other stuff bad for the environment and keep doing it cause i have workers?

Get another job.

Exactly.... it's not like those jobs aren't replaceable. If you squeeze customers for a few bucks so that they think twice about shitting on the earth, they may change their attitudes. Plastic bag production will drop because of lower demand. But people need to carry their shit in something... so those workers that made plastic bags will need to start making new types of bags.

This is the same thing with the whole auto sector bullshit. **** the workers. The system in which they operate isn't working. They need to rip it down and start over with better models. Those workers might be out a job temporarily, but someone else will pick up the slack somewhere.

People are too ignorant and too apathetic to initiate any kind of positive change on their own. Bitch bitch bitch. This is changing, that is changing. Woe is me. I'm sick of it. We are starting to realize how badly we're ****ing up our planet, and luckily there's one or two people with enough power and insight to do something about it. God forbid we would need to adapt!! Holy shit!!

We're a greedy, wasteful, self-serving society. Throughout history, when a civilization reaches that point, they usually get swept away into the books. If we're too stubborn and ignorant to do anything about our situation, we'll meet the same fate.

/rant

[Arash]

Originally Posted by StikiGreenZ

Who the hell cares? I'm so sick and tired of people always worrying about workers...

Can i start a company making asbestos or other stuff bad for the environment and keep doing it cause i have workers?

Get another job.

asbestos is bad for your health, so they can be banned all at once, plastic bags don't pose any immediate threat to your health, they're just bad for environment. I just stated that the $0.05 should be given back to plastic bag producers so they can come up with degradable products, rather than the chain stores getting to keep the extra $$ and plastic bag producers going out of business, its not fair..