Toronto Enforces Plastic Bag Fee
Toronto, Canada’s most populated city, is now charging consumers five cents for every plastic bag requested from a retailer in an effort to reduce the consumption of disposable packaging. The law took effect on June 1 and is part of Toronto’s commitment to achieve a 70 percent waste diversion rate.
According to American Chemistry Council, in 2006, 812 million pounds of plastic bags and film were recycled in the U.S. Photo: Pricegrabber.com
The city currently offers a plastic bag recycling program and is prohibiting retailers from offering disposable bags that don’t qualify in the program. This includes those that are biodegradable and compostable as well as bags with non-plastic handles.
Suggested by the City, the original plan was for consumers to receive a 10 cent discount for each reusable bag they brought in, but the Canadian Council of Grocery Distributors argued that this would force them to increase prices. Toronto was also in talks to have coffee shops offer a 20 cent discount for customers providing reusable mugs, but this has yet to materialize.
The new law does not specify a final destination for the five cent fees charged, but Best Buy has already announced that proceeds from its stores will be donated to Toronto’s youth programs.
In the U.S., cities are addressing plastic bag disposal with several tactics. Some are enforcing fees, set up recycling programs through retailers or have banned plastic bags altogether.
As of June 17th 2011 we have upgraded our comment system to use Facebook comments.
The below comments are closed and are listed for historical purposes.
J Mann
posted on June 18th, 2009 at 11:47 am
On the surface this is great, but now we are paying 5 cents for a bag with a Walmart advertising logo??? If the logo stays, make the company pay!!! Make them all PLAIN bags…or contain reminders about the environment on them. Its a good initiative and I personally dont mind paying .05/bag, but needs more thought.
Sustainability a Recognized Criterion for MBA Programs - Earth911.com
posted on December 9th, 2009 at 9:29 am
[...] the first time, the Schulich School of Business at York University in Toronto, Canada ranked No. 1 for its integration of social and environmental impact issues into management [...]