City of Toronto deals with plastic

@cher913 (25782)
Canada
January 13, 2009 1:07pm CST
The city of Toronto (Canada) has decreed that ALL stores must put a 5 cent toll on each and every plastic bag that goes out of the stores! that is including stores like sears and any other store you can think of! what do you think of this? have you heard of any cities that have done this? do you think that this will help the environment?
5 people like this
12 responses
@ShepherdSpy (8544)
• Omagh, Northern Ireland
13 Jan 09
The Republic of Ireland has had a "Bag Tax" chargeable for each plastic bag used in place for several years now..It does cut down on the Number of bags used,and has led to a resurgence in the use of more permanent shopping bags or recyclable ones by residents..As a Visitor to the Republic,coming from Northern Ireland,I'd seldom have a recyclable shopping bag along with Me,so rely on having a backpack or some other form of baggage at the time..There are some German parented stores set up in the UK and Ireland that don't provide disposable bags,instead encouraging shoppers to buy a recyclable bag,or use packing cartons left available after shelf stocking to take your shopping to the car..this also saves them on recycling their cardboard,and allows for lower prices! Recycling does take a deal of thought...A Newspaper article I read today stated a Certain well known international Fast food chain was the source of some 20% of street litter on streets in the UK..Responsible Recycling is one thing,thoughtless littering is something else! Getting everyone on the same page here would be great..
• Omagh, Northern Ireland
10 Jun 09
I've been planning my shopping on a weekly basis for some time,and go prepared with at least one recyclable bag to hand..my regular supermarket is catching on with recycling,and their loyalty points scheme has "Green" points bonuses for re-using your plastic carrier bags or bringing a shopping bag/basket to save on taking new ones away..they'll also offer extra green points for recycling used printer cartridges by posting off their free postage paid envelopes to their recycling partners! Thanks for best response!
@jesssp (2712)
• Canada
14 Jan 09
I think it's a good idea ( Superstore has done it forever) as long as the money actually goes into environmental causes and not into the retailers bank account. I do have one little grocery bag complaint though. Safeway and places like that have their reusable bags for .99, which I like and I have bought several. BUT, when you try to use them with the self checkouts it recognizes it as something that shouldn't be in the bagging area and screws up the entire process. I just think that the best way to make things like this ('green' initiatives) work is to make them as easy as possible. That way people might actually use them.
• Omagh, Northern Ireland
10 Jun 09
I get that problem with the self checkouts too..I use one of the shallow trolleys they provide to do my shopping,then keep my bag in the trolley basket until I've piled all my purchases on the "Out" shelf,then load into the bag in the trolley!
@suspenseful (40193)
• Canada
14 Jan 09
I remember when people used paper bags for everything and I was watching some old movies of those times and the old Ironsides Series. Of course, they forgot to show you what happened when the bags got wet and the eggs and the rest of the food dropped on the sidewalk. Cloth and those black recyclable bags are fine for groceries, but what do you do in the winter when it snows for the garbage? Do you save ice cream pails and keep the trash under the sink until the snow melts? I suppose they will be charging double for those plastic garbage liners now. I hope they have a solution for that.
@earthsong (589)
• United States
14 Jan 09
There are pros and cons to this. I do think it will help the environment. People may be much less likely to just throw them out without reusing them if they have to pay for them. And it will also help the stores recover some of the costs of buying the bags themselves (like retail markup isn't supposed to cover that already), unless of course, they will have to pay it to their provinces like sales tax, in which case it'll go to the local governing body. On the down side, I have already heard plenty of trash collectors and farmers complaining about how there's really no difference between the plastic bags and reusuable ones, they have both been found clogging up fence lines and roadside drainage ditches and wrapped around hooves and horns of livestock. I think in any case there needs to be more responsibility of consumers to make sure they aren't just tossing them idly and I also think that if there is an economical way to make packing peanuts out of biodegradable materials, there's probably a way to do the same with those bags.
@zhuhuifen46 (3483)
• China
14 Jan 09
China started this practice from June 1, 2008.
• Brazil
17 Jun 09
I think it's interesting, maybe it can help our environment and not used as any other taxes that we have to pay. Here where I live we don't have anything like that on stores, but some stores are trying to stop using plastic bags and trying to make costumers buy their own reusable bags. But the problem is the price of the bags, around 15,00 USD, it's to expensive for one bag.
@wolfie34 (26771)
• United Kingdom
13 Jan 09
Most UK stores are imposing a price on carrier bags, they used to be free, but now you have to pay for them, although not all supermarkets are doing this as yet, but some have other methods like giving you 1p back if you reuse carrier bags which is an incentive. In time they should be phased out, but it's always a slow process isn't it. A bag for life which is not made from plastic should be available instead, we need to help our environment today NOT tomorrow!
@vanities (11395)
• Davao, Philippines
14 Jan 09
hi cher...well just curious on the too fee..what are they going to do about it? is it use for recycling or what??i guess not..i mean about the toll fee and everything...what i know of is we pay a toll fee if we travel north or south and this is for the maintenance of bridges or the road itself..
@Pose123 (21635)
• Canada
14 Jan 09
Hi cher, Personally, I think it is a great idea as plastics is really terrible for the environment. Cloth, reusable bags are available almost everywhere now and are usually priced at just one dollar. I do not live in Toronto but have been using the cloth bags for about a year now. I expect other cities will follow very quickly, but in order to really get everyone using the cloth bags, they will probably have to charge more for the plastic. Some people will never take it seriously until they feel it in the pocket book. Blessings.
@alamode (3071)
• United States
13 Jan 09
In my mind, this is the equivalent of another tax... In some counties in our state, you can't even get a plastic bag... you're expected to carry reuse-ables with you. I don't think it will help much because plastic bags are only a small problem, but it will give someone a chunk of money to do something with... lets hope its something good.
@goldeneagle (6745)
• United States
13 Jan 09
I actually like the idea. Those cloth bags people buy to use over-and-over are much better for the environment. Walmart sells them for $1 each, and you can take them with you to any store you shop at to keep from having to use those plastic bags that make their way to the landfills by the millions and last forever. Perhaps this tax will influence people to start using the reusable bags. This would certainly benefit the environment. I wish they would do something like this here in my area...
@Opal26 (17679)
• United States
14 Jan 09
Hey cher! Wow! That is really bad! I haven't heard of this happening anywhere else yet anyway! I sure hope that they don't start doing this in the USA! Especially I hope they don't decide to do it the grocery stores! When I do my monthly grocery shopping I get about 20 plastic bags and I use them for garbage bags for my wastebaskets! I don't really want to have to pay for them! I guess if we have to there won't be a choice! What do they think that this is going to do for the environment? It is just going to make the stores more money?