In December of 2018, CTV began an article questioning the charge for plastic bags with: “No one likes to be nickel-and-dimed.
That’s why those who speak on behalf of consumers who pay for plastic bags and those who study the environment those fees are purportedly designed to protect are calling for greater transparency from retailers. ‘If it is going to the environment, then let us see the figures on it,” Consumers’ Association of Canada president Bruce Cran told CTV News.” In the article, retailers wouldn’t tell CTV what their plastic bags cost them, with the Plastic Association of Canada suggesting each bag costs 2.5 cents at most. The article then goes on to state that there was serious profit to be made selling consumers plastic bags at 5 cents each. This leaves one to ponder what retail companies are NOW making at 25 cents a bag!
The article concludes: “The production of reusable cloth bags, for instance, produces fewer greenhouse gases but consumes much more water than plastic bags. And if shoppers reuse their plastic bags multiple times, it can in some cases be the greener option of the two. ‘Consumers are sort of frozen,’ Huddart Kennedy said. ‘We don’t actually have a great solution for how to transport things. Cloth bags aren’t perfect. Plastic bags aren’t perfect. Paper bags aren’t perfect.’”
A study done by the Progressive Bag Alliance, subsequently peer-reviewed by Michael Overcash, then a professor of chemical engineering at North Carolina State University, compared the environmental impact of the creation of paper vs. plastic bags. Because the carrying capacity of a plastic bag and a paper bag is not the same, the study used the carrying capacity of 1,000 paper bags as its baseline and compared their impacts to the impacts of 1,500 plastic bags. The plastic bags used 14.9 kg of fossil fuels for manufacturing compared to 23.2 kg for paper bags. Plastic bags produced 7 kg of municipal solid waste compared to 33.9 kg for paper, and greenhouse gas emissions were equivalent to 0.04 tons of CO2 compared to paper’s 0.08 tons. Plastic bags used 58 gallons of fresh water, while paper used 1,004 gallons. Energy use totaled 763 megajoules for plastic, and 2,622 megajoules for paper.
With stores being reluctant to disclose what they pay for paper bags, we searched “bulk paper bag purchases” and found on ULine.ca that five bundles of 500 bags per bundle could be purchased for $60, and 10+ bundles could be purchased for $59, which would be a cost of $0.12 per paper bag.
From the Province of B.C. website: “Charge at least $2 for each new reusable shopping bag and at least 25¢ for each new recycled paper shopping bag. Let customers know about the fee in advance, and show any fee charged as a separate line item on receipts. You may use the fees you collect as you choose to offset your costs, for example, or to invest in a take-a-bag/leave-a-bag program.” Why would the Province give this type of probable windfall of passive income to retailers, especially large grocery chains, to just use the income as they wish? A little top-up for their grocery union votes?
Exemptions to the bag “tax” include bags at drive-throughs and those used for deliveries. The exemption does not apply when picking up take-out food—good luck juggling your six containers of Chinese take-out.
Additionally, in B.C., stores can no longer offer plastic shopping bags, and oxo-degradable plastic packaging and single-use products won’t be available for purchase. This includes food service ware, like bowls and boxes, made of biodegradable plastic, polystyrene foam, polyvinyl chloride, or polyvinylidene chloride materials, as well as biodegradable plastic or PVDC film wrap and all oxo-degradable plastics. Less waste sounds great, but much of it is greenwashing like the new paper straws which, according to Science Daily, contain a forever chemical: “Eco-friendly” paper drinking straws contain long-lasting and potentially toxic chemicals, a new study has concluded. In the first analysis of its kind in Europe, and only the second in the world, Belgian researchers tested 39 brands of straws for the group of synthetic chemicals known as poly- and perfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS). PFAS were found in the majority of the straws tested and were most common in those made from paper and bamboo, the study, published in the peer-reviewed journal Food Additives and Contaminants, found. PFAS are used to make everyday products, from outdoor clothing to non-stick pans, resistant to water, heat, and stains. They are, however, potentially harmful to people, wildlife, and the environment.”
Other changes will be implemented as BC tries to reach its “Clean BC” targets by 2030. We won’t know all the “plans,” but one coming July 1, 2028, will be a ban on PVC film wrap used to seal and secure food items in containers, and another ban by July 1, 2030, on polystyrene foam trays. (Will it be interesting to see what the meat departments will have to come up with—or will that be redundant as we will be eating bugs by then?)
No one is arguing that we need less waste in our environment and that we should all do our part, but when half of recycling has been shown to be a scam, and a large revenue of tax income for the Province, and when you have to now purchase plastic garbage bags instead of those you would get from a store with your purchases to use for garbage, and when we still see everything sold, down to cucumbers, wrapped in plastic, it leaves one to ponder, is this a grift?
