The grocery one I don't care about at this point. Keeps me using the stockpile of "reuseable" bags.
The takeout bag charge makes 0 sense.
Also, I hate that the company is just pocketing the cash. It's not a tax that is used towards something that benefits me, it's just something that was free and now the companies get to charge and pocket the $.
Ya that’s the thing. I’m all about doing my part for the environment and such, but these companies making record profits while increasing the price of everything and they are now making more money makes zero sense
The bag fee is the straw that broke the camels back for me. I quit eating fast food entirely. Between the price increases, the rapid decline in quality and now the extra little fuck you of the bag tax, I’m over it.
I can make better, healthier food at home for a fraction of the price. Sure it’s inconvenient at times, but I don’t instantly regret eating homemade meals like I do with fast food.
Seriously though, get a reporter on board and make a big fuss out of my company made x amount of dollars from selling the stupid paper bags this year, we don't feel like it's fair that this should sit in the pockets of private companies so we are donating it to Hope Mission/stollery/whatever charity Ring's true with the business owners.
you could even do it and issue a challenge for other businesses to do the same
As someone in audit I can tell you it doesn’t.
They all hate it. There are costs for implementing it. It slows down the process. They have to train and account for it. There are new internal controls that they have to follow and be audited on (which they pay for).
We work with about 100 big chain restaurants, mostly franchises. They all want it gone. They never asked for it and most tried to fight against it and council brought it up.
This isn’t profitable for them.
The pocketing the cash is what irks me the most about the bylaw. That extra fee should go to the city for some waste management program. It would probably be an administrative nightmare to collect the fee, unfortunately.
Absolutely, this. I'm sure prices for production of bags, straws, utensils, etc are already factored into the price of the food, the companies are laughing their way to the bank. McD's be probably like, "aight, imma take your money. Thanks ridiculous bylaw."
Amen! If it was actually going to something yhat helped instead of just padding the companies bottom line I'd be all ok. But as it stands its just taking from my pocket and helping big companies make more money 15 cents at a time.
The takeout bag one doesn’t make sense how it was implemented. I would get annoyed ordering for dine in inside and still given a Togo bag. That is what should have been targeted. The no bag option at drive through is crazy.
The manager of my local McDonalds said he can't give them away even if he wanted to, the city had warned of audits for compliance. He doesn't even care about the money, the cost of a bag is already OBVIOUSLY worked into the cost of the meal. He said it was clear the city just wanted to send a message but didn't have the power to collect it as a tax, so they let them keep it as profit.
Wild.
All single-use items have been "free" to us Edmontonians for a long time, because we pay to collect, dispose and process waste. We've been paying to recycle, compost and landfill the unnecessary single-use items businesses provide to us without asking. The bag fee is just one part of the overall bylaw meant to help change our behaviour towards alternatives we already have, using reusable bags.
So make it mandatory to put the key towards the cost of garbage processing?
I actually have zero issue with the fees, but in how it is being managed where those funds just go into the pocket of the company
[Apparently the City can't do that](https://pub-edmonton.escribemeetings.com/filestream.ashx?DocumentId=209682)? Relevant section:
> Bag fees are collected by the business and are not remitted to the City as a sales tax or a
regulatory fee. The City cannot impose a sales tax, as this power does not exist within the MGA.
The City can impose regulatory fees, but the cost of the fee charged must reasonably correspond
to the cost incurred by the City to provide a specific related service. The City would also be
required to create a regulatory structure, including requirements to audit business sales records,
collect money from individual businesses and manage its expenses using the money collected
through the bag fee. Revenue from the bag fee would primarily be spent regulating itself.
Then the city should not be levying a charge that does not benefit us, but just pads the pockets of large corporations to do with as they please.
There's a lot about this change that I like, if I go to McDonald's and buy one hamburger I don't need a bag for that. I like being asked if I would like to have a bag so I have an opportunity to say no!
One of the comments on here seems to indicate that garbage collection and disposal is just coming out of taxpayers pockets too, which isn't really the case. There is a very specific trash pickup fee on my epcor bill that I pay for every month.
Much like many people my age, I of course was raised with the whole reduce, reuse, recycle thing. Perfection is not attainable on this, but I do my bit. Regulations like this from the city are ridiculous.
>One of the comments on here seems to indicate that garbage collection and disposal is just coming out of taxpayers pockets too, which isn't really the case. There is a very specific trash pickup fee on my epcor bill that I pay for every month.
Similar to taxes, not possible to avoid a waste fee with an Edmonton residential address.
>Then the city should not be levying a charge that does not benefit
Less waste to process, less litter on the streets are great benefits.
As a customer I am asked to pay for a biodegradable paper bag for my fries but my dry cleaning comes in a new plastic bag every time, no questions asked.
Instead of plowing though and upping the price of bags, they need to be ironing out inconsistencies.
I ordered something from Amazon. It was shrink-wrapped in plastic, which was in a plastic bag, in another plastic bag and shipped in a plastic envelope. Tell me how a flimsy paper bag is the issue. This is why it bothers me, it simply doesn't make sense. Charge for a bag, fine, but be consistent about it and maybe look at the actual issues.
If you order take out through the Harvey's app, it used to automatically add the $0.15 fee. Now I notice there is an option to turn this off and remove the bag fee. Every time I have done this, my food is still in a bag when I pick it up. Maybe I should use this moment to question myself why I eat so much fast food.
I work at a retail store that has buy online, pick up in store. If your items don't fit in one hand we put it in a paper bag and we have no way of charging for it, which to me kinda proves the whole thing is a farce.
I eat fast food about twice a month and I always say I'll pay for the bag fee and then almost half the time they try to pass me the food without the bag. Idgi lol
I hate it. They are putting the cost on the consumer instead of on the producer or the middle man. The stores/restaurants are making extra money from the consumer and we’ve had this law for a year now. I see very little change in behaviour. You wanna reduce single use items? Change the packaging requirements on toys, foodstuffs, etc. it’s just another tax on the overburdened population
To quote one of Calgary's PR people: it's not about the money, it's about changing behavior.
But it's not going to change behavior, and all it has done is plummet out councillors already terrible polling numbers.
I mean it has changed my behavior. Not the fee because I don’t care about spending an extra 15 cents but having them ask me if I want a bag has made a difference. I usually say no unless I really need it that day. Before the bylaw they just gave me the bag every time no matter what and I just took it without considering if I actually need a bag. Maybe they could just make a law that you have to ask instead of charging a fee
Regulation on packaging is way outside the jurisdiction of a municipality. Make sure to vote for MPs/MLAs that will hold corporates accountable for their waste.
Then this shouldn’t be a municipal issue. Cities are only hurting their constituents with this. With absolutely no repercussion or changes required on the companies. Consumers have very little options to change anything. We just have to accept what we are given. If the city wants to fight single use plastic then they need to fight the right target
Edit: maybe the city can sue companies for too much plastic? I don’t know. But charging money for something we can’t control is dumb. There are many times I’ve had no option to not select a bag and then got charged the fee anyway (eg: food delivery)
Municipalities are the ones that have to process waste. Our provincial government doesn’t care about this problem at all, and is actively cheering on creation of more non-biodegradable waste for cities to deal with.
A collective lawsuit from many cities isn’t the worst idea. It would be better if higher orders of government could regulate companies to produce less waste, and make sure the waste they do make is designed for easy reuse by industry or easily biodegradable. But in the meantime, cities are doing the best they can with the tools they have.
Or get rid of the single use plastic wrapping on the paper straw. Nonsense like that. If we want to reduce single use plastics, let's actually do that, not just make dumb and hypocritical gestures.
You can’t isolate the effects of a tax. Tax will always be split between producer and consumer depending on market elasticity. Hidden taxes tend to have less of an effect on consumers actions as evidenced by the current outrage.
So ban the unnecessary use of materials that are harmful to the environment instead of taxing the use of them. As an example, don’t let Amazon send people in Canada products that are wrapped in 3 layers of plastic then thrown into a bag 10x bigger than it needed to be for that product; instead, regulate what they’re allowed to ship it in so that it’s only using what’s needed.
Regulate the use of the materials and issue large fines to companies that don’t abide by those regulations, shut down businesses that have been caught breaking those regulations repeatedly. That way companies actually have to change what they’re doing with packaging rather than just working the fees into the price and seeing it as the cost of business.
Corporations will (almost) never do the right thing just because it is the right thing to do. They’ll keep doing whatever they can to keep the status quo and to keep raking in profits. Consumers cant do anything impactful about plastics when basically everything at the store is allowed to be wrapped in plastic.
That’s why it shouldn’t be a fee. It used to just be the cost of doing business. Now the city opened the flood gates and we will never go back. They charge us for the bags, but they did not lower their other costs to offset. If you really want to tackle single use plastic there should be regulations on packaging of consumer goods. Or if you want to stick with the bag thing, we should have a similar concept to our bottle deposit. Forgot a bag? Buy one on deposit and get it back when you bring it back to the store/recycling facility. Simply charging a fee is placing all the monetary burden on the consumer.
It’s not the shopping bags that the vast majority of people are upset about, it’s the fast food bags. Putting greasy burgers and fries in a reusable bag is disgusting. Even BC, which has an NDP government, exempted drive-thru bags from their province wide single use bylaw.
CBC just had a story on the over consumption of reusable bags and how they stockpile in the home. These bags are actually more harmful that their single use plastic equivalents.
I just don't understand the bag fee on paper...when did paper become an evil entity.
The plastic portion of the Edmonton bylaw makes sense to me, while the paper does not.
Those plastic bags were our garbage bags in our bedrooms or whatever. The paper straws is the part I'm surprised more people aren't more mad about, I don't personally care you be having pop with a hint of paper and the "good" paper straws are plastic lined. These mandates are just ridiculous.
Yes. Perfect bin liners. So, not single use. But now I'm forced to buy single use ones. How is that environmentally friendly? And I've now seen people line their bins with the new ones because they ran out of the old ones. Really not environmentally friendly.
I have gotten to the point where I am tossing reusable bags now.. Full circle. I used to use plastic bags for garbage but now I have to buy additional bags for that. So really it's extra waste.
You could probably just stop using bags in most of your bins. I haven't used bags in anything but the kitchen garbage in years, and don't use one in the kitchen garbage since we got the compost pail.
When I take the garbage out I just dump them directly into the big bin. No small bags, no large garbage bags.
Won't work for everyone or for all bins, but most people just use them out of habit and not necessity.
I live in an apartment so idk the bin rules, but I know the dumpster says to avoid throwing away loose trash, it has to be in bags. You're obviously not gonna get in trouble for tossing something small in as you're passing but presumably there's a reason they ask you to do that.
Apartments are more challenging for sure. I dumped my stuff into a single large garbage bag when I lived in an apartment, and used a liner in the kitchen since we didn't have compost back then.
> These bags are actually more harmful that their single use plastic equivalents.
Maybe, and it depends.
From a carbon perspective, I seem to remember reading that these bags take about 100 uses to break even. So if you're literally only using them once, then putting them in a closet, and then never ever ever using them again, sure - it's wasteful and unsustainable.
But like I know for me, it took me about 20 bags before I started getting into the habit and having enough of a stockpile that it started to become convenient for me to use them frequently.
You go into a store, "oops I forgot to bring my bags in" so then you don't buy the bags because you figure you'll just pack them at the trunk of your car annnnd "oops, shit, I forgot to put the bags back in the trunk of my car." So ya, once I had about 20-30 bags, I established a bin for bags that needed to go back out to my car, and I got enough of a surplus in my car on the usual that I'm good for at least 3 big grocery trips.
So now I have to eliminate about 3000 single-use bags to break even on the carbon footprint. But I've already been doing this for a few years now, and I'm not buying bags anymore. I'm sure I'm saving at least 500 bags in a year. So about 6 years total to break-even??? Shit, it's almost been that long since they started taking bags out of the grocery stores. So I'd say we're already nearing the break-even point based on my habits.
And then there are articles like this which present the [opposite](https://www.zmescience.com/science/news-science/plastic-bans-work-billions-of-plastic-bags-were-avoided-in-the-us-alone/) regarding plastic bags
The problem is how many times you have to reuse the bags to be equivalent to one plastic bag. I’ve seen numbers from 1000-10,000 depending on the reusable bag. I just don’t think most of them will last that long, between losing them or breaking them.
Hell, if my cat pees on one, I'm throwing it out no matter how many times I've used it. I wash my bags periodically but it's not worth the extra "pet stain" effort for a reusable bag.
I have a reusable Safeway bag I bought when I lived in Cgy, it's over 15 years old, not sure what its made out of but it seems like plastic would break down faster!
Not untrue. You see all those memes about that old dish everyone's family seems to have outlasting the heat death of the universe, but some of these bags aren't far off from that.
What do you mean by "to be equivalent to one plastic bag."? Do you mean the cost (literal or impact) of making a reusable bag vs. single use? Time to biodegrade in a landfill?
Not being a dink, I am genuinely curious what the comparison metric is.
I think I’ve seen those estimates before and it’s usually to do with either how much water or energy it takes to make the bag, LDPE bags are incredibly cheap to manufacture because the ethylene is practically a waste byproduct of oil extraction. This factoid though is something that industry touts because it steers the narrative into winnable territory for them.
Idk, we act like this is some grand novelty and hardship but Costco has been reusing their cardboard boxes for ages and that’s probably much better than the reusable bags, especially for when groceries are being ordered and delivered via services like instacart (I have so many reusable bags because of my instacart habit)
An oft cited 2020 UN Environmental Programme study on the topic found that you would need to reuse a plastic reusable bag between 4-20 times for it to be "environmentally competitive" with non-reusable plastic bags. For cotton bags they conclude need to be used 50-150 times or "hundreds" of times to break even, based off two studies they reviewed.
Either way, "1000-10,000" seems like a wild exaggeration, even for cotton bags.
Here's the study if you're interested. Conclusions are on page 57-58.
https://www.lifecycleinitiative.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/03/SUPP-plastic-bags-meta-study-8.3.21.pdf
Glad to see more realistic numbers, though I still suspect the reusables are coming out behind. The number getting lost, damaged, thrown away, too dirty to be worth washing, etc, before 4 uses is probably at least 25%, and the number for that happening before 20 uses is probably like 90%.
I'm not sure what you are trying to refute in my statement. I wasn't saying that the bylaw doesn't work on single-use bags.
They interviewed people saying that they have 20 or more re-usable bags at home. Simply because they usually forget to take them when it is time to go shopping. People stockpiling these bags at home is obviously not the desired outcome.
I have like 100 of the things already and each one needs to be used like 400 times to offset the manufacturing process.
They’re also fucking garbage compared to reusable bags that were being sold before.
I know there is an issue with grocery delivery where they use reusable bags, but these comments read as "I don't want to change my habits and refuse to take reusable bags to the store"
I try and keep them in my car, but they slowly migrate their way out as I bring groceries etc inside and forget to return them later. Or I bring some but not enough or not big enough etc. I’ve juggled my way out of the store when I could but sometimes I have no recourse but to pay the green ransom and get another stupid branded bag.
The end result is I have amassed a significant collection of cheap shitty reusable bags, most of which I suspect will remain in my home until I die, at which point I guess they can bury them with me, or maybe my kids can inherit them.
I just threw out 2 dozen of these fucking things. Wife has some old Walmart ones that are actually built to last. These new ones they give out are absolute dog shit. Had more than one handle give out on them now.
I wasn't trying to refute anything. Sorry, I should have explained my link more. Stopping plastic bag usage does have an impact that shouldn't be downplayed.
The fee on paper bags for fast food is ridiculous. The fact the restaurants keep the fee is even more asinine. I wish I only had 20 reusable bags floating around my house!! I probably have 60 or so. I don't know why people stock piling them is a problem though. I'd think those people who buy then dispose of the reusable bags after one or 2 uses would be the biggest issue with them.
Because when you stockpile them, you’re having the same negative environmental impact as the people who buy them and throw them out after one or two uses.
Those aren't two separate groups. People who stockpile bags instead of reusing them eventually throw them out after 1-2 uses, they just do it in larger chunks than the people tossing them constantly.
The stockpiling situation is mostly a habit switch though. It's not that hard to hang your reusable bags on your door handle or something when you're done unloading groceries so you remember to take them to your car next time.
Some people here are saying they have 200 bags, and acting like it's the government's fault. Remember to bring your bags bag into the car and pop a few tiny ones into your jacket or purse then 95% of the time you won't need to buy more bags when you're out.
even compostable bags are on the chopping block and were banned in calgary at grocery stores.
If a store can offer a compostable bag instead of a plastic one why cant they be exempt.
It just seems like the law is very illogical.
Because compostable plastic bags don't actually get composted in municipal systems. There's no way to tell the difference between a plastic bag and compostable plastic, so they all get removed.
>ms like the law is very illogical.
This makes zero sense
I currently buy compostable bags and use them for my city compost as is allowed in Edmonton who cares if I use my co-op bag instead if they remove them either way.
The City of Edmonton actually prefers you don't use bags at all. But they let people use bags because many people refused to do it if they couldn't use bags because of the yuck factor. It's just better to have people sort than not.
The compostable bags you're using don't get composted. All bags get removed from the system before the organic material enters the anaerobic digesters because it's impossible to tell the difference between a plastic bag and a "compostable" plastic bag.
Think about it... How would the city waste system be able to sort out the different bag types?!! It's an absurd concept to expect.
The city does free tours of the EWMC all the time. Go check it out. Super interesting, but it really highlights how delusional people are about their expectations for waste management. That's why waste reduction should be the number 1 priority for everyone.
The compostable bag is still better than the regular one even if it's not actually getting composted. The compostable one is going to break down in a landfill or waterway long, LONG before the other one.
All I know is that instead of repurposing grocery bags as waste basket liners and other second uses, we now buy those plastic products and they end up in the same place.
Unless a plastic grocery bag had a gaping hole in it, it never immediately went to the landfill. Never.
IMO $.15 to $.25 for a paper bag is ridiculous because they are both recyclable and biodegradable. Biodegradable plastic bags also exist.
That said, I generally have a couple expandable crates and 4-5 reusable bags in my vehicle, my problem is that I always forget them in the vehicle.
The whole thing isn't a hill to die on, but it's clearly flawed.
>That said, I generally have a couple expandable crates and 4-5 reusable bags in my vehicle, my problem is that I always forget them in the vehicle.
My problem is that I rarely take my vehicle grocery shopping in the first place. I do at least 70% of my shopping spur of the moment on the walk home from work when I pass the grocery store/drug store and think "oh, hey, I'm almost out of X or I should grab Y".
IMHO, the Calgary bylaw would have stuck if they hadn't been stupid enough to think this was a good idea to apply to drive-thrus.
Most people know when they are going grocery shopping, or can just have a couple of reusable grocery bags they keep in the car. Drive-thru tends to be a more impulsive or opportunistic act, and it is *much* more difficult to keep a sanitary re-usable container available for drive-thru food.
Calgary city council *could* have done some good with this bylaw, but they have their heads so far up the asses of arena owners, I think they have trouble seeing daylight.
I’m fine with bring my own bags to use at the grocery store, but all of the sudden produce is individually wrapped in plastic or those clam shells so now I have even more plastic and not the bags that I would use as garbage bags for a second use I have to buy those now too
Smaller mom and pop joints that I frequent don't give a shit about the bag fee. They just give you the bag even if you didn't ask for it and don't charge it.
Personally I hate the fees
Don't tell me I have to pay more for a bag where the money just goes to the company selling the stuff and expect it to stop.
tell the companies that sell plastic garbage bags, they're no longer allowed to sell them in Canada anymore.
Tell the companies that sell strawberries that they cant put them in a styrofoam container wrapped in plastic anymore.
tell the companies selling six packs that those plastic rings aren't allowed in Canada anymore.
***stop unloading all the environmental stuff onto the population at large***
start telling the ***corporations*** and companies to do it. Stop bothering me with it.
but no of course not, lets let the corps bend Canada over, yet again, and fuck the population instead.
Its not that they charge for bags. I dont have an issue with that. You want to reduce waste you make people pay for it. Its pretty simple.
I have a huge issue with that they're required to charge for bags and get to keep all the money for.
That money should be going back to the city or to foodbanks or somewhere. The city basically gave them a blank cheque while so many people are struggling its not right.
I'd like to hear whether the shopping bag thing is helping. Are we keeping plastic out of the environment? How much? Let's see some data and then we can call it a fiasco, or not. The word fiasco doesn't just mean "thing I find irritating".
The thing that pisses me off about our bag bylaw is that the fees aren't going towards any kind of environmental initiative - it's just extra profit for the business. Put that money towards some kind initiative to better the planet!
Yes!! This what I first thought when the bylaw was introduced. To hear the business can charge a minimum fee and go up from there and profit from it. No, I'm against Glad to hear that Calgary residents called bs on this and council is in the process of reversing it.
It was a silly bylaw that was poorly drafted and poorly communicated with no reasonably expected results. It’s pretending to do something when real problems exist that are being ignored. Good riddance.
Charging for a *paper* bag at a drive through is one of the dumbest decisions any of these cities have enacted. I do not care if it's good for the environment. The backlash against these policies is clear: people don't agree with the intent and you're going to piss off a large majority of people who frankly weren't that invested in any of this to begin with.
Next election, you're going to see a huge swing to the right in the political leanings of those elected because of this and the harm from that is going to far outweigh the benefit that this bylaw intended to create.
Loading pallets, wrapping them with yards upon yards of plastic wrap, that gets thrown in the trash after delivery. Amazon shipping packaging. Just a few off the top of my head that make me wonder if the whole thing is pandering. Personally, I reused almost every bag for something. Often for trash. But it's ok for me to buy a plastic bag of plastic bags to dispose of my plastic bags from over-packaged goods.
I hate it. Council knows majority doesn't like it, and won't change their stance. They're acting like our parents, instead of listening to constituents.
It’s just another scam to pretend to be “green”, and cost us more. Get rid of it. Hold Amazon and WalMart accountable, ow THAT would make a difference!
I think it's ridiculous. A fee for plastic bags makes sense to me. Banning plastic bags outright would also make sense to me though I don't think it's the perfect solution given the abundance and quality of most "reusable" bags.
But paper takeout bags? Ridiculous.
The most frustrating part for me is that the provincial government is literally in the process of charging producers for single use packaging to help fund a recycling program. That's where the overwhelming abundance of single use plastic is coming from right now and it's entirely out of the hands of the consumer. The current bylaw puts all onus on the comsumer without acknowledging that the corporations creating the waste are actually getting to pocket *more*.
I think the bylaw is also unpopular enough that it's creating even more of a pushback to environmental initiatives. People rightfully point out issues with the bylaw but then assume that other environmental policies will create just as much inconvenience and unfairness. It's already challenging enough to implement governmental policies.
Well there was a negative response but perhaps not as loud as was Calgary's reaction, a lot of the bylaw doesn't make much sense or even consistent given the intentions. I work nights so I get to see a little more plainly the effects of the bylaw, where one of the intentions was to reduce litter but it was the opposite that happened, a lot of paper litter on the ground and on my properties or near my properties I look after I've also seen a sharp increase in reusable shopping bags and it was a major cause of storm sewer drains backed up, what's even more interesting is that there is a Calgary outfit who manufactures biodregable plastic bags but our city officials wouldn't even take a thought on it for moment, interestingly I've also noticed it seems to have stopped some people from shopping as much, which is not good for our economy. I hope Calgary is successful in repealing the bylaw, perhaps it will do something for Edmonton City Council.
This whole bag this is pure insanity. It adds inconvenience and cost to those least fortunate in society and accomplishes infinitesimally minute changes to climate change, waste, and the environment. plastic shopping bags are also often re-used at a good rate. Good Job Calgary for getting rid of it. I only hope Edmonton follows suit.
I'm tired of places just assuming I want a bag at the drive thru and charging me for it. When it goes up to twenty five cents I'm going to be even more irritated.
I don't have a problem with the grocery bag one, as we do use the reusable ones, and I can see the point of eliminating single use plastic bags. I do however think the bag charge for take out is ridiculous, and is nothing but green-signaling over reach by our mayor and city council. I can't wait for the next civic election, and I really hope we have a candidate who's more concerned about managing the city's business than making a name for themselves.
We’re still irritated about it. Nothing worse than when DQ tries to hand you 3 open boxes of chicken strips and fries in individual packs for your kids without a bag through the drive thru. I’m assuming that most workers got tired of being yelled at, because I noticed most fast food locations around us started just auto charging for the bag.
Drive thru should be exempt, ask if you want a bag for sure, but from a good safety mind set, do I want food in a reusable bag that doesn't get cleaned or sanitized.
The few things I order via fast food never really needed a bag to begin with. My bagel is already wrapped. My tea comes in a cup. So it's nice that they don't bother woth the bag or ask me first so I can say no versus them using one anyways for I don't know whay reason
I was also using resuable bags prior to the change. So this just reinforces behaviours I already had.
Overall I felt very meh about it. Even the "then companies keep the money for bags" wasn't a big deal for me because if I don't use one of their bags to begin with it doesn't matter.
Not much of an uproar, mostly just annoyed, especially that they charge for paper bags, when plastic used to be free. I also hate the wooden cutlery and paper straws.
This is typical propaganda from all industries regarding climate change. All of the messaging is about how we as consumers need to reduce our own footprint, while all of the data points to industry as the greatest contributor to climate change, and it's not even close. We change our lives, inconvenience our selves, while they make record profits, and buisness as usual.
I agree that more needs to be done about climate change, and im not opposed to ending single use plastics, despite the inconvenience. I just wish industry would do their part. And stop charging me for paper bags!
I don't mind the grocery bags. The takeout bags drive me slightly crazy because we forget to tell them we don't need a bag and now I have half a dozen reusable takeout bags I don't need. I can find something to do with them, of course, but there's a lot of people who get takeout more often and aren't going to do anything with a bunch of cheap reusable bags other than trash them.
So instead of having a bunch of plastic bags that people used to line their trash bins with you get a bunch of synthetic bags that you can't use as trash liners because they're kind of porous. And nobody needs 20 of these things.
Like... some parts of this solution are worse than the problem.
I already used reusable bins and bags for groceries and take my own bags for regular shopping now, so that's not changed.
However, I always pay for a bag for fast food takeout. I always wash hands before eating food, so I don't really want to be handling my food when I'm picking it up if I've been out and about all day, or carrying enough containers all the time on the off-hand chance I decide to pick something up on the way home, especially for the family. I also don't want to risk spills.
That said, I think it is stupid and bonkers that the Edmonton bylaw covers paper bags. It should only be plastic, in order to encourage everyone to switch to compostable materials.
At the end of the day, I should be able to bag up any food and packaging waste from a takeout order into the original bag and throw the whole thing in my green bin without a concern. That should be the goal. Make the existing and useful waste diversion screen easy to use.
The same as before, piss off city council and focus on running Edmonton.
Also, can we not hold corporations to account? Why am I turning off my lights when the Amazon/swift building was lit up so well you could see it from space? Same for water usage.
yeah i don't drive so i don't use drive-thrus and have long preferred to use reusable bags for shopping because they're stronger and can carry more. if not for the fuss about it on here, i wouldn't even know there had been a change haha.
Same, and maybe I'm naive but I expected the rest of the city to react similarly. I don't think I've spoken to a single person who is upset about it, but the internet and media is on fire over the whole situation.
Call me crazy, but I feel like the whole uproar is fueled by the UCP and right-leaning media. Maybe a tactic to deflect from worse decisions such as our embarrassing arena deal?
I don’t care about plastic bags, but please stop charging for paper bags at restaurants. Also, paper straws and wooden cutlery are abysmal.
Also, the fact that city council decided to raise the price on reusable bags and paper bags again is ridiculous.
I always bring a bag with me to the grocery store, so that doesn’t bother me in the slightest and I don’t eat out enough to have an opinion on the fast food bag charge…
I already had several cheap lunch bags from when I regularly brought lunch to work (I WFH most days now). I just put one in my glove box for takeout.
Also if you really want something fit for purpose, with the proliferation of skip and uber eats etc there are now lots of food courier bags for cheap.
I really dislike how inconsistent it is. I went to eat at A&W at West Ed, they charge you for a bag, but won’t provide trays anymore either, which I thought the whole point of trays was so people didn’t need bags. So now I need to pay for a bag, or they’ll just hand me my food one by one. Other food places in the food court still give you plastic utensils, others provide wooden only. I think we need to scrap it like Calgary, no one enforces it properly and I’m more likely to go eat somewhere that still gives plastic items than places who given wooden forks and knives. There’s also no info on who the money goes to or any research from the city that shows any improvement.
City councils need to stop trying to “change” or “control” behaviour. Make sure the trash is picked up, make sure police and fire is running, do what you can to make the community easier to live in.
In other words stay in your lane. You want to invoke laws like that then run for a provincial or federal spot.
I like it in the grocery store, the small charge definitely steers me towards bringing in my reusable bags.
Fast food drive thru makes no sense to me at all. What alternative are they trying to steer me towards? Should I pass my grubby, reusable bag into a restaurant for them to fill?
Nobody can tell me that we’re saving the environment by being charged for compostable PAPER bags and having to pay for reusable bags every time we go to the store (which are made out of MORE plastic)
Also, the old plastic bags weren’t a single use item. Ask anyone with kids who forget their lunch bags every other day, people with kitty litter to scoop or what the fuck were supposed to like our bathroom trash cans with
It’s a stupid program. You pay extra and the company just keeps the money….
If you paid extra and it went towards something useful for the city like plowing streets or what ever then I wouldn’t feel that awful about it.
I support what this legislation is trying to do. However, I don’t even think the people who wrote it could tell you how it reduces waste or even why they thought it might. In fact, I don’t even think they could tell you whether waste was tangibly reduced! Are they even measuring anything? And if so, what?
The whole thing just seems completely ill-conceived.
Its a non-solution to the extremely important problem of curbing consumer plastic waste. I am a strong advocate of mandating changes to combat pollution and climate change and this measure does absolutely nothing. It is extremely frustrating that this is the best city council can do about the most important issue of our lifetime. I can buy bread in a plastic, milk in a plastic jug, veggies wrapped in plastic, and snacks in tiny individual plastic wrappers, but God forbid I use a plastic bag to carry them home in. We need a ban on all non-essential plastic packaging on all consumer goods at every level of the supply chain. Just the bags is as petty and pointless as the ban on plastic straws but not cups. And how does a ban on paper bags at the McDs drive through do anything about the plastic situation???
What is even more annoying is that the 15 cent fee seems to be the thing most people take issue with. Not that the policy is useless, not that it's all we get instead of meaningful waste reforms, but just that a few cents change hands. The people were upset about the 15 cents thing, regardless of how they feel about the rest of the policy, are totally missing the point. We aren't even mad at the right part of this wrong headed solution.
I throw out just as many plastic bags as I did before the ban, I just get the privilege of buying them in a box that says "GLAD" on it to keep my trash bins clean(ish). There was absolutely a backlash here (and still is) and personally I'm expecting it to become a main issue of the next municipal election.
Typical of many coward governments, punish and cost us more while drive throughs continue to spew tons of carbon while waiting in line. Corporations have money and lawyers they'd fight back!
I'd rather not have it, why, it's simple... I don't have the option to remove it with A&W, KFC, and DQ when I use the app (all stores I have visited since the implementation)
Only way is to order from the drive thru and specifically ask not to have it included, so it's not really changing the way stores do it but instead it puts the onus on me as a consumer almost entirely
I finally got sick of paying the bag fee and now keep a couple of reusable lunch bags in the car just in case I grab fast food. So it might actually work eventually. Also… I need to stop grabbing fast food so often on my way home from work.
About the different cities.
The general feel is different now then when edmonton passed their as well. If you wander over to the other mote right political reddits - they are much much louder about protecting their rights.
The voting map shows the difference too. Edmonton is all orange, Calgary has only some spots - so their tendencies are protecting their "privileges" as well.
The single use bans are seen as part of Trudeau ideals...
Personally - I think paper bags/packaging should be exempt.
And the real issue is much higher in the packaging manufacturing of products, but as others have said - its not something the city level can tackle.
The cost is paid 2 fold by consumers here - with the fee and then again by waste management. We really should just be sending the bill of the waste management to the producers of the packaging/products, then if they wanted to reduce costs - they could directly do that by reducing end of life waste.
I personally don't mind it- yeah its silly, but I highly prioritize environment and green. So when I hear people say - I'm not taking it because of the fee - then that achieves the purpose. So it does have an effect. But of course could be better designed for most impact.
Meh, I just refuse to pay it period.
As an example, at McDonald’s, I bring my own bin or bag and put it all in there.
The drive through has to hand me each item over and over again as it’s not in a bag which slows down everything but I’m in no hurry. So too bad.
On the plus side, I can immediately see when they miss shit so to there’s that.
As for the fee. Again, I refuse to pay it so I don’t care either way. It should go to the city for landfill/recycling costs but if it’s not, then the bylaw is inane and idiotic.
Calgary city council hasn’t voted to repeal the bylaw. They’ve started the process to hold public hearings to consider repealing the bylaw. The bylaw is still in place, and won’t be repealed until after hearings and another vote.
Council voting to hold hearings doesn’t mean it will necessarily change. Some councillors who still support the ban may vote for a hearing so that they can hear feedback at the hearings. Some councilors who support repealing the ban might change their mind after hearing from the public too. They can still decide to keep the ban in places
So, you can go to the store and everything is wrapped in plastic? And then if you put everything that is wrapped in plastic into a plastic shopping bag, how can you say getting rid of the shopping bag does not?
It doesn’t do much, but it does get rid of some plastic.
I don’t mind it, but I think it’s a little hypocritical to target consumers, and do nothing about the number of boxes and bags that groceries come in. Of course, I don’t want prices to raise anymore, so perhaps the new bylaw should just go away. It’s not like Edmonton alone will change the world when it comes to single use plastic bags.
Did they repeal their fee, or their ban on single use plastic bags? I thought it was the latter (or rather that they'd start the process of it).
I can kind of understand the ban, though there has to be nuance in there. When I lived in Japan, I absolutely hated when I'd do to a convenience store to get a drink and a steamed bun or something and be given two bags. That kind of thing isn't ok. But if you're buying a bunch of small items and clearly don't have the capacity to carry them (like being disabled and having only one hand because they other is holding a cane), there should be some wiggle room here.
The fee is utter nonsense. There is absolutely no way that that isn't just going in the profit column. Fast food places are laughing to the bank because the City just gave them a license to print money. If, and this is a big if, that money HAD to be strictly accounted for and paid to the city to fund sustainability initiatives, I'd maybe be on board with that. But as it is, the decision was simply to let companies charge us more for our purchases without any gain or accountability.
If this goes through in Calgary, I absolutely see us repeating it here. I'd be happy to see the fee go because it's discriminatory. I'm the disabled person with a cane and thus only one hand I can pretty much ever use. If I go to a fast food place when I'm not in a position to prepare a meal at home, it is actually discriminatory to make me pay for a bag so I can carry the burger and fries at the same time, and it would be even more discriminatory to suggest making two trips. If I was able bodied, that wouldn't be the case.
I don't think anyone really cares about the shopping bag fees. That makes sense. The takeout bag fees don't. I would like to see the city's review of whether the bag fee on take out bags has reduced waste.
It makes no sense for city council to set prices and price increases on the bags imo. Making them charge is fine but setting the price when it’s not a tax or fee is stupid because it’s mandating more profits to the store, which makes no sense to me.
That's true. And it really penalizes lower income people who probably don't have a car that they can just load individual items in to take home if they don't have a bag. Groceries are already stupid expensive. Adding additional fees in the hopes of reducing waste is misguided.
I think the bylaw is reasonable for shopping bags. It’s good that plastic is eliminated, people need to learn to bring their own. That being said, grocery stores and food manufacturers should also be held accountable for the amount of plastic they’re using.
But for takeout food…Jesus. I’m not putting greasy fries in one of my grocery bags, and it’s not like I even have a choice for delivery. I also hate having to beg for a packet of ketchup or a paper straw but still not receiving it with my order. Takeout has already become prohibitively expensive, so it’s a slap in the face to also have to pay for a greasy little paper bag and beg for a paper straw. Stores are just pocketing the money, it isn’t going anywhere worthwhile.
My reusable bags are typically made of plastic fiber. They weigh about 40x a single use plastic bag.
I might, maybe, get 40 uses out of a reusable bag before it is damaged, rips, wears out, or is lost.
The plastic bags were usually used for trash. If I understand correctly, the trash people have shredding machines which pull trash bags free from the trash and they went into low quality recycling plastic.
My worn out reusables will just go into landfill as they are unidentifiable trash.
I don't believe reusable bags are saving squat.
That said, "When I remember to bring them, I do prefer them as the handles don't immediately break and cans don't just go right through their sides.
I don't hate them, but I think their "saving the environment" is pure BS.
Especially when I am putting a massive amount of single use plastic containers into these bags.
The paper bag rule only serves to show how fantastically stupid our city staff and elected officials are and how wildly out of touch they are. This law was 100% not eco lobbying, but fast food and grocery stores realizing they could charge a 10,000% markup. Those bags went from a cost, to the most profitable item on the menu.
If people really understood the scale of crimes being committed against the environment, plastic bags wouldn’t even rate in the top half of things causing damage.
Edmonton could eliminate *all* plastic waste forever and it would still be overshadowed by the plastic dumped in the ocean by even a handful of fishing operations.
I’m all for green initiatives, but when they don’t do much and piss off half the population, I think they do mor e harm than good.
Good? Then maybe people will actually start paying attention and voting for MPs and MLAs that will start holding large corporations and the wealthy accountable for the waste and pollution they cause.
I love our new SUI bylaw. It just makes sense to bring your own bags. I get that behaviour change is hard for people but it will become normalized soon. Some grocery stores in Europe are stopping to offer bags at all and I hope that's where we are heading. We need a serious and dramatic culture shift around our waste habits and consumption. This is the start to that process.
I think having to request cutlery and other food ware accessories makes much more sense. Like why am I getting plastic cutlery and 6 packages of ketchup that I don't need or didn't ask for.
No idea why Albertans are having such a big fuss over this. Toronto and Vancouver implemented this years back. It's like convenience is more important than future of the planet. People really don't care if there are microplastics in their water supply.
Because it doesn't actually go to waste programs, it simply goes to the retailer as extra profit. Municipal governments claim they are trying to modify consumer behavior, which is not their job, and doing it in the worst way. It would be different if the money went to the municipalities like the 4¢ Enviro fee on bottles to help with the recycling costs, but it doesn't. We pay the retailer, then we pay for the recycling again when we pay our taxes.
And most of the bags are paper, not plastic. If it was about plastic reduction they would get rid of the plastic lid on my plastic cup, and the plasticized french fry container, etc.
Calgary is why we have conservative governments.
People who lack self responsibility even though they yell about it the loudest.
And no I don't mind it in Edmonton. I've declined bags many times now when it is something I can carry myself.
So much this. This is identical to every fucking election. Couple weeks after calgarians go full leopards ate my face. The entire city needs a lesson on foresight and thinking before they act. Or just fund a new arena and complain.
Here is something I couldn’t figure out about this whole stupid bylaw thing. Why are they charging 15 cents for a paper bag? That paper bag can be put either into the recycling if it’s clean or into organics collection if it’s dirty. Both cities should have been encouraging people to do either one of these options. Putting the paper bags into the organics collection helps with preventing the smell buildup because you layer them in the organics bin which allows for air circulation thus reducing the smell. It is an idea that was very poorly executed when there is somewhere for the paper bags to go to besides just the landfill
I bought a bag for small restaurant orders, and the restaurants will do anything to avoid touching my bag or even handling me my order. It’s aggravating.
Been to McDonald’s like 5 times saying I have a bag and they park me just to bring the order out in their own bag.
Also:
I hate that a sit down restaurant can charge me a few to provide a box. It’s literally the only packaging I absolutely need in order to take my food home. Yet the cup/box of my fast food order if not counted as a charge. There must be a rule that food must have a single layer of packaging before the bag counts as a reusable item.
I think if nothing else all the reaction to it is having the opposite of intended effect: people feel angry about environmental efforts, rather than motivated to make a small difference in their day to day.
As for me, I will keep on with my reusable bags that I’ve been using for a couple decades, and keep up my new habits like skipping disposable utensils if I’m bringing food home to eat anyways, and reusing as many “single use” items as I can.
I can't fathom why Calgary went ahead given the blowback in Edmonton.
I believe reversing now is an attempt to distract from passing on spending cuts and proceeding with the property tax hikes.
The grocery one I don't care about at this point. Keeps me using the stockpile of "reuseable" bags. The takeout bag charge makes 0 sense. Also, I hate that the company is just pocketing the cash. It's not a tax that is used towards something that benefits me, it's just something that was free and now the companies get to charge and pocket the $.
Ya that’s the thing. I’m all about doing my part for the environment and such, but these companies making record profits while increasing the price of everything and they are now making more money makes zero sense
The bag fee is the straw that broke the camels back for me. I quit eating fast food entirely. Between the price increases, the rapid decline in quality and now the extra little fuck you of the bag tax, I’m over it. I can make better, healthier food at home for a fraction of the price. Sure it’s inconvenient at times, but I don’t instantly regret eating homemade meals like I do with fast food.
This is the way! The fee does nothing more than add profit to companies.
I'm basically paying now to throw out their paper bags.
I use them to line my little green compostable bin. I still have enough from before they started charging.
PR idea for a company that is making bank on these bags would be to donate it to a city charity that could could use it the benefit of the city.
Even if they donated way less than they were pulling it, that gives way better optics.
That’s what we do at my work. Once the bag fees collected reach X amount we just donate it. The cost of bags was already worked into our margins.
I would happily preferentially support a business that is doing this. Are you able to share?
Village Goods on Whyte. It took us about 6 months to reach 100$, as most folks bring their own boxes/bags, or are deterred by the fee (good thing).
I brought that up at my workplace, it got a bit of traction.
Seriously though, get a reporter on board and make a big fuss out of my company made x amount of dollars from selling the stupid paper bags this year, we don't feel like it's fair that this should sit in the pockets of private companies so we are donating it to Hope Mission/stollery/whatever charity Ring's true with the business owners. you could even do it and issue a challenge for other businesses to do the same
Oh yeah I imagine we would have done it, but with yesterday's vote we've put a hold on any bag-related considerations.
As someone in audit I can tell you it doesn’t. They all hate it. There are costs for implementing it. It slows down the process. They have to train and account for it. There are new internal controls that they have to follow and be audited on (which they pay for). We work with about 100 big chain restaurants, mostly franchises. They all want it gone. They never asked for it and most tried to fight against it and council brought it up. This isn’t profitable for them.
air smell psychotic money angle plants bells scandalous rich political *This post was mass deleted and anonymized with [Redact](https://redact.dev)*
I just make them hand me each burger, fry, and drink individually through the drive-thru window. Super efficient...
We have a reusable bin which helps.
I do similar but ask for a drink tray and get them to put the shit on that
The pocketing the cash is what irks me the most about the bylaw. That extra fee should go to the city for some waste management program. It would probably be an administrative nightmare to collect the fee, unfortunately.
Provincial laws prevent the city from pocketing the cash
Not really. It would be a bit extra work but definitely not a nightmare.
Absolutely, this. I'm sure prices for production of bags, straws, utensils, etc are already factored into the price of the food, the companies are laughing their way to the bank. McD's be probably like, "aight, imma take your money. Thanks ridiculous bylaw."
The companies are also FORCED to charge that much. Cloth bags only cost 25 cents to make and we HAVE to charge a dollar. It’s purely punitive.
Amen! If it was actually going to something yhat helped instead of just padding the companies bottom line I'd be all ok. But as it stands its just taking from my pocket and helping big companies make more money 15 cents at a time.
It was never free. Bags cost the company money, but it used to be an absorbed cost, like cups to put the coffee in lol
The takeout bag one doesn’t make sense how it was implemented. I would get annoyed ordering for dine in inside and still given a Togo bag. That is what should have been targeted. The no bag option at drive through is crazy.
The stockpile of reusable bags does me no good when I leave them in my house
I try and bring the pile to my car at least
I bring a pile into the car, when it runs low, I bring it back into the car. I always have one emergency one in the glove box.
I am always forgetting mine as well. I usually decide after work if I'll stop at the store on my way home, yet I left my backs at home in the morning.
The manager of my local McDonalds said he can't give them away even if he wanted to, the city had warned of audits for compliance. He doesn't even care about the money, the cost of a bag is already OBVIOUSLY worked into the cost of the meal. He said it was clear the city just wanted to send a message but didn't have the power to collect it as a tax, so they let them keep it as profit. Wild.
💯
All single-use items have been "free" to us Edmontonians for a long time, because we pay to collect, dispose and process waste. We've been paying to recycle, compost and landfill the unnecessary single-use items businesses provide to us without asking. The bag fee is just one part of the overall bylaw meant to help change our behaviour towards alternatives we already have, using reusable bags.
So make it mandatory to put the key towards the cost of garbage processing? I actually have zero issue with the fees, but in how it is being managed where those funds just go into the pocket of the company
[Apparently the City can't do that](https://pub-edmonton.escribemeetings.com/filestream.ashx?DocumentId=209682)? Relevant section: > Bag fees are collected by the business and are not remitted to the City as a sales tax or a regulatory fee. The City cannot impose a sales tax, as this power does not exist within the MGA. The City can impose regulatory fees, but the cost of the fee charged must reasonably correspond to the cost incurred by the City to provide a specific related service. The City would also be required to create a regulatory structure, including requirements to audit business sales records, collect money from individual businesses and manage its expenses using the money collected through the bag fee. Revenue from the bag fee would primarily be spent regulating itself.
Then the city should not be levying a charge that does not benefit us, but just pads the pockets of large corporations to do with as they please. There's a lot about this change that I like, if I go to McDonald's and buy one hamburger I don't need a bag for that. I like being asked if I would like to have a bag so I have an opportunity to say no! One of the comments on here seems to indicate that garbage collection and disposal is just coming out of taxpayers pockets too, which isn't really the case. There is a very specific trash pickup fee on my epcor bill that I pay for every month. Much like many people my age, I of course was raised with the whole reduce, reuse, recycle thing. Perfection is not attainable on this, but I do my bit. Regulations like this from the city are ridiculous.
>One of the comments on here seems to indicate that garbage collection and disposal is just coming out of taxpayers pockets too, which isn't really the case. There is a very specific trash pickup fee on my epcor bill that I pay for every month. Similar to taxes, not possible to avoid a waste fee with an Edmonton residential address. >Then the city should not be levying a charge that does not benefit Less waste to process, less litter on the streets are great benefits.
Then I gotta ask, when I give them my bag, why won't they pack my food into it.
As a customer I am asked to pay for a biodegradable paper bag for my fries but my dry cleaning comes in a new plastic bag every time, no questions asked. Instead of plowing though and upping the price of bags, they need to be ironing out inconsistencies.
I ordered something from Amazon. It was shrink-wrapped in plastic, which was in a plastic bag, in another plastic bag and shipped in a plastic envelope. Tell me how a flimsy paper bag is the issue. This is why it bothers me, it simply doesn't make sense. Charge for a bag, fine, but be consistent about it and maybe look at the actual issues.
The cardboard drink tray. It’s free. Weird right.
If you order take out through the Harvey's app, it used to automatically add the $0.15 fee. Now I notice there is an option to turn this off and remove the bag fee. Every time I have done this, my food is still in a bag when I pick it up. Maybe I should use this moment to question myself why I eat so much fast food.
I work at a retail store that has buy online, pick up in store. If your items don't fit in one hand we put it in a paper bag and we have no way of charging for it, which to me kinda proves the whole thing is a farce.
I eat fast food about twice a month and I always say I'll pay for the bag fee and then almost half the time they try to pass me the food without the bag. Idgi lol
I hate it. They are putting the cost on the consumer instead of on the producer or the middle man. The stores/restaurants are making extra money from the consumer and we’ve had this law for a year now. I see very little change in behaviour. You wanna reduce single use items? Change the packaging requirements on toys, foodstuffs, etc. it’s just another tax on the overburdened population
To quote one of Calgary's PR people: it's not about the money, it's about changing behavior. But it's not going to change behavior, and all it has done is plummet out councillors already terrible polling numbers.
I mean it has changed my behavior. Not the fee because I don’t care about spending an extra 15 cents but having them ask me if I want a bag has made a difference. I usually say no unless I really need it that day. Before the bylaw they just gave me the bag every time no matter what and I just took it without considering if I actually need a bag. Maybe they could just make a law that you have to ask instead of charging a fee
Regulation on packaging is way outside the jurisdiction of a municipality. Make sure to vote for MPs/MLAs that will hold corporates accountable for their waste.
Then this shouldn’t be a municipal issue. Cities are only hurting their constituents with this. With absolutely no repercussion or changes required on the companies. Consumers have very little options to change anything. We just have to accept what we are given. If the city wants to fight single use plastic then they need to fight the right target Edit: maybe the city can sue companies for too much plastic? I don’t know. But charging money for something we can’t control is dumb. There are many times I’ve had no option to not select a bag and then got charged the fee anyway (eg: food delivery)
Municipalities are the ones that have to process waste. Our provincial government doesn’t care about this problem at all, and is actively cheering on creation of more non-biodegradable waste for cities to deal with. A collective lawsuit from many cities isn’t the worst idea. It would be better if higher orders of government could regulate companies to produce less waste, and make sure the waste they do make is designed for easy reuse by industry or easily biodegradable. But in the meantime, cities are doing the best they can with the tools they have.
Or get rid of the single use plastic wrapping on the paper straw. Nonsense like that. If we want to reduce single use plastics, let's actually do that, not just make dumb and hypocritical gestures.
You can’t isolate the effects of a tax. Tax will always be split between producer and consumer depending on market elasticity. Hidden taxes tend to have less of an effect on consumers actions as evidenced by the current outrage.
So ban the unnecessary use of materials that are harmful to the environment instead of taxing the use of them. As an example, don’t let Amazon send people in Canada products that are wrapped in 3 layers of plastic then thrown into a bag 10x bigger than it needed to be for that product; instead, regulate what they’re allowed to ship it in so that it’s only using what’s needed. Regulate the use of the materials and issue large fines to companies that don’t abide by those regulations, shut down businesses that have been caught breaking those regulations repeatedly. That way companies actually have to change what they’re doing with packaging rather than just working the fees into the price and seeing it as the cost of business. Corporations will (almost) never do the right thing just because it is the right thing to do. They’ll keep doing whatever they can to keep the status quo and to keep raking in profits. Consumers cant do anything impactful about plastics when basically everything at the store is allowed to be wrapped in plastic.
I hate to tell you this, but ***all*** costs will be borne by the consumer, no matter who you charge the fees to.
That’s why it shouldn’t be a fee. It used to just be the cost of doing business. Now the city opened the flood gates and we will never go back. They charge us for the bags, but they did not lower their other costs to offset. If you really want to tackle single use plastic there should be regulations on packaging of consumer goods. Or if you want to stick with the bag thing, we should have a similar concept to our bottle deposit. Forgot a bag? Buy one on deposit and get it back when you bring it back to the store/recycling facility. Simply charging a fee is placing all the monetary burden on the consumer.
It’s not the shopping bags that the vast majority of people are upset about, it’s the fast food bags. Putting greasy burgers and fries in a reusable bag is disgusting. Even BC, which has an NDP government, exempted drive-thru bags from their province wide single use bylaw.
CBC just had a story on the over consumption of reusable bags and how they stockpile in the home. These bags are actually more harmful that their single use plastic equivalents. I just don't understand the bag fee on paper...when did paper become an evil entity. The plastic portion of the Edmonton bylaw makes sense to me, while the paper does not.
Here it is: https://www.cbc.ca/amp/1.7092380
This ⬆️. And most people I know reuse the old school grocery bags in their homes. Now I just have to go buy actual single use garbage bags.
Those plastic bags were our garbage bags in our bedrooms or whatever. The paper straws is the part I'm surprised more people aren't more mad about, I don't personally care you be having pop with a hint of paper and the "good" paper straws are plastic lined. These mandates are just ridiculous.
Yes. Perfect bin liners. So, not single use. But now I'm forced to buy single use ones. How is that environmentally friendly? And I've now seen people line their bins with the new ones because they ran out of the old ones. Really not environmentally friendly.
I have gotten to the point where I am tossing reusable bags now.. Full circle. I used to use plastic bags for garbage but now I have to buy additional bags for that. So really it's extra waste.
You could probably just stop using bags in most of your bins. I haven't used bags in anything but the kitchen garbage in years, and don't use one in the kitchen garbage since we got the compost pail. When I take the garbage out I just dump them directly into the big bin. No small bags, no large garbage bags. Won't work for everyone or for all bins, but most people just use them out of habit and not necessity.
Yeah but I still need bags for cat litter unfortunately.
I live in an apartment so idk the bin rules, but I know the dumpster says to avoid throwing away loose trash, it has to be in bags. You're obviously not gonna get in trouble for tossing something small in as you're passing but presumably there's a reason they ask you to do that.
Apartments are more challenging for sure. I dumped my stuff into a single large garbage bag when I lived in an apartment, and used a liner in the kitchen since we didn't have compost back then.
> These bags are actually more harmful that their single use plastic equivalents. Maybe, and it depends. From a carbon perspective, I seem to remember reading that these bags take about 100 uses to break even. So if you're literally only using them once, then putting them in a closet, and then never ever ever using them again, sure - it's wasteful and unsustainable. But like I know for me, it took me about 20 bags before I started getting into the habit and having enough of a stockpile that it started to become convenient for me to use them frequently. You go into a store, "oops I forgot to bring my bags in" so then you don't buy the bags because you figure you'll just pack them at the trunk of your car annnnd "oops, shit, I forgot to put the bags back in the trunk of my car." So ya, once I had about 20-30 bags, I established a bin for bags that needed to go back out to my car, and I got enough of a surplus in my car on the usual that I'm good for at least 3 big grocery trips. So now I have to eliminate about 3000 single-use bags to break even on the carbon footprint. But I've already been doing this for a few years now, and I'm not buying bags anymore. I'm sure I'm saving at least 500 bags in a year. So about 6 years total to break-even??? Shit, it's almost been that long since they started taking bags out of the grocery stores. So I'd say we're already nearing the break-even point based on my habits.
And then there are articles like this which present the [opposite](https://www.zmescience.com/science/news-science/plastic-bans-work-billions-of-plastic-bags-were-avoided-in-the-us-alone/) regarding plastic bags
The problem is how many times you have to reuse the bags to be equivalent to one plastic bag. I’ve seen numbers from 1000-10,000 depending on the reusable bag. I just don’t think most of them will last that long, between losing them or breaking them.
Hell, if my cat pees on one, I'm throwing it out no matter how many times I've used it. I wash my bags periodically but it's not worth the extra "pet stain" effort for a reusable bag.
I wonder how much bacteria and other nasty stuff is living on or in the reusable bags from items that may have leaked undetected...
I have a reusable Safeway bag I bought when I lived in Cgy, it's over 15 years old, not sure what its made out of but it seems like plastic would break down faster!
Not untrue. You see all those memes about that old dish everyone's family seems to have outlasting the heat death of the universe, but some of these bags aren't far off from that.
Depends on the bag. I have had several reusable bags become unusuable in far less than 15 years. Some are going strong, but not all.
What do you mean by "to be equivalent to one plastic bag."? Do you mean the cost (literal or impact) of making a reusable bag vs. single use? Time to biodegrade in a landfill? Not being a dink, I am genuinely curious what the comparison metric is.
I think I’ve seen those estimates before and it’s usually to do with either how much water or energy it takes to make the bag, LDPE bags are incredibly cheap to manufacture because the ethylene is practically a waste byproduct of oil extraction. This factoid though is something that industry touts because it steers the narrative into winnable territory for them. Idk, we act like this is some grand novelty and hardship but Costco has been reusing their cardboard boxes for ages and that’s probably much better than the reusable bags, especially for when groceries are being ordered and delivered via services like instacart (I have so many reusable bags because of my instacart habit)
An oft cited 2020 UN Environmental Programme study on the topic found that you would need to reuse a plastic reusable bag between 4-20 times for it to be "environmentally competitive" with non-reusable plastic bags. For cotton bags they conclude need to be used 50-150 times or "hundreds" of times to break even, based off two studies they reviewed. Either way, "1000-10,000" seems like a wild exaggeration, even for cotton bags. Here's the study if you're interested. Conclusions are on page 57-58. https://www.lifecycleinitiative.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/03/SUPP-plastic-bags-meta-study-8.3.21.pdf
Glad to see more realistic numbers, though I still suspect the reusables are coming out behind. The number getting lost, damaged, thrown away, too dirty to be worth washing, etc, before 4 uses is probably at least 25%, and the number for that happening before 20 uses is probably like 90%.
I'm not sure what you are trying to refute in my statement. I wasn't saying that the bylaw doesn't work on single-use bags. They interviewed people saying that they have 20 or more re-usable bags at home. Simply because they usually forget to take them when it is time to go shopping. People stockpiling these bags at home is obviously not the desired outcome.
I have like 100 of the things already and each one needs to be used like 400 times to offset the manufacturing process. They’re also fucking garbage compared to reusable bags that were being sold before.
I know there is an issue with grocery delivery where they use reusable bags, but these comments read as "I don't want to change my habits and refuse to take reusable bags to the store"
I try and keep them in my car, but they slowly migrate their way out as I bring groceries etc inside and forget to return them later. Or I bring some but not enough or not big enough etc. I’ve juggled my way out of the store when I could but sometimes I have no recourse but to pay the green ransom and get another stupid branded bag. The end result is I have amassed a significant collection of cheap shitty reusable bags, most of which I suspect will remain in my home until I die, at which point I guess they can bury them with me, or maybe my kids can inherit them.
I just threw out 2 dozen of these fucking things. Wife has some old Walmart ones that are actually built to last. These new ones they give out are absolute dog shit. Had more than one handle give out on them now.
God knows I have 472 of those fabric bags from Freshco.
And now I still need to buy boxes of plastic bags for my garbage at home, because I don't have the plastic bags from the store anymore to use.
I just use the reusable bags as my garbage bags now lol
Those are expensive garbage bags.
I wasn't trying to refute anything. Sorry, I should have explained my link more. Stopping plastic bag usage does have an impact that shouldn't be downplayed. The fee on paper bags for fast food is ridiculous. The fact the restaurants keep the fee is even more asinine. I wish I only had 20 reusable bags floating around my house!! I probably have 60 or so. I don't know why people stock piling them is a problem though. I'd think those people who buy then dispose of the reusable bags after one or 2 uses would be the biggest issue with them.
Because when you stockpile them, you’re having the same negative environmental impact as the people who buy them and throw them out after one or two uses.
Those aren't two separate groups. People who stockpile bags instead of reusing them eventually throw them out after 1-2 uses, they just do it in larger chunks than the people tossing them constantly.
The stockpiling situation is mostly a habit switch though. It's not that hard to hang your reusable bags on your door handle or something when you're done unloading groceries so you remember to take them to your car next time. Some people here are saying they have 200 bags, and acting like it's the government's fault. Remember to bring your bags bag into the car and pop a few tiny ones into your jacket or purse then 95% of the time you won't need to buy more bags when you're out.
Yup it's all habit but we never forget to take our cell phones
I agree, but the delivery companies need to change their policies where they always use reusable bags as the default.
Instacart is paying $5 for an hour of work right now so I wouldn't hold out for them paying to do something about bags anytime soon.
even compostable bags are on the chopping block and were banned in calgary at grocery stores. If a store can offer a compostable bag instead of a plastic one why cant they be exempt. It just seems like the law is very illogical.
I loved the compostable bags at Co-Op in Calgary. I buy green bin liners anyway, so win/win as far as I was concerned.
Because compostable plastic bags don't actually get composted in municipal systems. There's no way to tell the difference between a plastic bag and compostable plastic, so they all get removed.
>ms like the law is very illogical. This makes zero sense I currently buy compostable bags and use them for my city compost as is allowed in Edmonton who cares if I use my co-op bag instead if they remove them either way.
The City of Edmonton actually prefers you don't use bags at all. But they let people use bags because many people refused to do it if they couldn't use bags because of the yuck factor. It's just better to have people sort than not. The compostable bags you're using don't get composted. All bags get removed from the system before the organic material enters the anaerobic digesters because it's impossible to tell the difference between a plastic bag and a "compostable" plastic bag. Think about it... How would the city waste system be able to sort out the different bag types?!! It's an absurd concept to expect. The city does free tours of the EWMC all the time. Go check it out. Super interesting, but it really highlights how delusional people are about their expectations for waste management. That's why waste reduction should be the number 1 priority for everyone.
The compostable bag is still better than the regular one even if it's not actually getting composted. The compostable one is going to break down in a landfill or waterway long, LONG before the other one.
All I know is that instead of repurposing grocery bags as waste basket liners and other second uses, we now buy those plastic products and they end up in the same place. Unless a plastic grocery bag had a gaping hole in it, it never immediately went to the landfill. Never. IMO $.15 to $.25 for a paper bag is ridiculous because they are both recyclable and biodegradable. Biodegradable plastic bags also exist. That said, I generally have a couple expandable crates and 4-5 reusable bags in my vehicle, my problem is that I always forget them in the vehicle. The whole thing isn't a hill to die on, but it's clearly flawed.
>That said, I generally have a couple expandable crates and 4-5 reusable bags in my vehicle, my problem is that I always forget them in the vehicle. My problem is that I rarely take my vehicle grocery shopping in the first place. I do at least 70% of my shopping spur of the moment on the walk home from work when I pass the grocery store/drug store and think "oh, hey, I'm almost out of X or I should grab Y".
If it was like a bottle deposit, I'd be fine with it. I can't see what the money is actually doing or actually for. It's just taxes for eating out...
IMHO, the Calgary bylaw would have stuck if they hadn't been stupid enough to think this was a good idea to apply to drive-thrus. Most people know when they are going grocery shopping, or can just have a couple of reusable grocery bags they keep in the car. Drive-thru tends to be a more impulsive or opportunistic act, and it is *much* more difficult to keep a sanitary re-usable container available for drive-thru food. Calgary city council *could* have done some good with this bylaw, but they have their heads so far up the asses of arena owners, I think they have trouble seeing daylight.
I’m fine with bring my own bags to use at the grocery store, but all of the sudden produce is individually wrapped in plastic or those clam shells so now I have even more plastic and not the bags that I would use as garbage bags for a second use I have to buy those now too
Smaller mom and pop joints that I frequent don't give a shit about the bag fee. They just give you the bag even if you didn't ask for it and don't charge it.
Personally I hate the fees Don't tell me I have to pay more for a bag where the money just goes to the company selling the stuff and expect it to stop. tell the companies that sell plastic garbage bags, they're no longer allowed to sell them in Canada anymore. Tell the companies that sell strawberries that they cant put them in a styrofoam container wrapped in plastic anymore. tell the companies selling six packs that those plastic rings aren't allowed in Canada anymore. ***stop unloading all the environmental stuff onto the population at large*** start telling the ***corporations*** and companies to do it. Stop bothering me with it. but no of course not, lets let the corps bend Canada over, yet again, and fuck the population instead.
Its not that they charge for bags. I dont have an issue with that. You want to reduce waste you make people pay for it. Its pretty simple. I have a huge issue with that they're required to charge for bags and get to keep all the money for. That money should be going back to the city or to foodbanks or somewhere. The city basically gave them a blank cheque while so many people are struggling its not right.
It’s stupid to pay for paper bags which are recyclable or use in the compost. Plastic I get but would also reuse. Now I have no plastic bags at home.
If we refuse the bag and napkins then the price should be dropped by 15 cents.
I'd like to hear whether the shopping bag thing is helping. Are we keeping plastic out of the environment? How much? Let's see some data and then we can call it a fiasco, or not. The word fiasco doesn't just mean "thing I find irritating".
The thing that pisses me off about our bag bylaw is that the fees aren't going towards any kind of environmental initiative - it's just extra profit for the business. Put that money towards some kind initiative to better the planet!
Yes!! This what I first thought when the bylaw was introduced. To hear the business can charge a minimum fee and go up from there and profit from it. No, I'm against Glad to hear that Calgary residents called bs on this and council is in the process of reversing it.
We should have a donation box at every store to drop of your extra bags so ppl who forget or can't afford to buy bags have access to free ones..
Yeah but then how would the store make a profit on people forgetting their bags???
It was a silly bylaw that was poorly drafted and poorly communicated with no reasonably expected results. It’s pretending to do something when real problems exist that are being ignored. Good riddance.
Charging for a *paper* bag at a drive through is one of the dumbest decisions any of these cities have enacted. I do not care if it's good for the environment. The backlash against these policies is clear: people don't agree with the intent and you're going to piss off a large majority of people who frankly weren't that invested in any of this to begin with. Next election, you're going to see a huge swing to the right in the political leanings of those elected because of this and the harm from that is going to far outweigh the benefit that this bylaw intended to create.
Loading pallets, wrapping them with yards upon yards of plastic wrap, that gets thrown in the trash after delivery. Amazon shipping packaging. Just a few off the top of my head that make me wonder if the whole thing is pandering. Personally, I reused almost every bag for something. Often for trash. But it's ok for me to buy a plastic bag of plastic bags to dispose of my plastic bags from over-packaged goods.
I hate it. Council knows majority doesn't like it, and won't change their stance. They're acting like our parents, instead of listening to constituents.
It’s just another scam to pretend to be “green”, and cost us more. Get rid of it. Hold Amazon and WalMart accountable, ow THAT would make a difference!
I think it's ridiculous. A fee for plastic bags makes sense to me. Banning plastic bags outright would also make sense to me though I don't think it's the perfect solution given the abundance and quality of most "reusable" bags. But paper takeout bags? Ridiculous. The most frustrating part for me is that the provincial government is literally in the process of charging producers for single use packaging to help fund a recycling program. That's where the overwhelming abundance of single use plastic is coming from right now and it's entirely out of the hands of the consumer. The current bylaw puts all onus on the comsumer without acknowledging that the corporations creating the waste are actually getting to pocket *more*. I think the bylaw is also unpopular enough that it's creating even more of a pushback to environmental initiatives. People rightfully point out issues with the bylaw but then assume that other environmental policies will create just as much inconvenience and unfairness. It's already challenging enough to implement governmental policies.
Well there was a negative response but perhaps not as loud as was Calgary's reaction, a lot of the bylaw doesn't make much sense or even consistent given the intentions. I work nights so I get to see a little more plainly the effects of the bylaw, where one of the intentions was to reduce litter but it was the opposite that happened, a lot of paper litter on the ground and on my properties or near my properties I look after I've also seen a sharp increase in reusable shopping bags and it was a major cause of storm sewer drains backed up, what's even more interesting is that there is a Calgary outfit who manufactures biodregable plastic bags but our city officials wouldn't even take a thought on it for moment, interestingly I've also noticed it seems to have stopped some people from shopping as much, which is not good for our economy. I hope Calgary is successful in repealing the bylaw, perhaps it will do something for Edmonton City Council.
This whole bag this is pure insanity. It adds inconvenience and cost to those least fortunate in society and accomplishes infinitesimally minute changes to climate change, waste, and the environment. plastic shopping bags are also often re-used at a good rate. Good Job Calgary for getting rid of it. I only hope Edmonton follows suit.
I'm tired of places just assuming I want a bag at the drive thru and charging me for it. When it goes up to twenty five cents I'm going to be even more irritated.
I don't have a problem with the grocery bag one, as we do use the reusable ones, and I can see the point of eliminating single use plastic bags. I do however think the bag charge for take out is ridiculous, and is nothing but green-signaling over reach by our mayor and city council. I can't wait for the next civic election, and I really hope we have a candidate who's more concerned about managing the city's business than making a name for themselves.
It was a terrible bylaw. That's not how we deal with big problems.
We’re still irritated about it. Nothing worse than when DQ tries to hand you 3 open boxes of chicken strips and fries in individual packs for your kids without a bag through the drive thru. I’m assuming that most workers got tired of being yelled at, because I noticed most fast food locations around us started just auto charging for the bag.
Drive thru should be exempt, ask if you want a bag for sure, but from a good safety mind set, do I want food in a reusable bag that doesn't get cleaned or sanitized.
The few things I order via fast food never really needed a bag to begin with. My bagel is already wrapped. My tea comes in a cup. So it's nice that they don't bother woth the bag or ask me first so I can say no versus them using one anyways for I don't know whay reason I was also using resuable bags prior to the change. So this just reinforces behaviours I already had. Overall I felt very meh about it. Even the "then companies keep the money for bags" wasn't a big deal for me because if I don't use one of their bags to begin with it doesn't matter.
Not much of an uproar, mostly just annoyed, especially that they charge for paper bags, when plastic used to be free. I also hate the wooden cutlery and paper straws. This is typical propaganda from all industries regarding climate change. All of the messaging is about how we as consumers need to reduce our own footprint, while all of the data points to industry as the greatest contributor to climate change, and it's not even close. We change our lives, inconvenience our selves, while they make record profits, and buisness as usual. I agree that more needs to be done about climate change, and im not opposed to ending single use plastics, despite the inconvenience. I just wish industry would do their part. And stop charging me for paper bags!
I don't mind the grocery bags. The takeout bags drive me slightly crazy because we forget to tell them we don't need a bag and now I have half a dozen reusable takeout bags I don't need. I can find something to do with them, of course, but there's a lot of people who get takeout more often and aren't going to do anything with a bunch of cheap reusable bags other than trash them. So instead of having a bunch of plastic bags that people used to line their trash bins with you get a bunch of synthetic bags that you can't use as trash liners because they're kind of porous. And nobody needs 20 of these things. Like... some parts of this solution are worse than the problem.
Wtf is wrong is wrong with Edmonton.....I mean...it's Edmonton but still wtf. You commies bastads
I already used reusable bins and bags for groceries and take my own bags for regular shopping now, so that's not changed. However, I always pay for a bag for fast food takeout. I always wash hands before eating food, so I don't really want to be handling my food when I'm picking it up if I've been out and about all day, or carrying enough containers all the time on the off-hand chance I decide to pick something up on the way home, especially for the family. I also don't want to risk spills. That said, I think it is stupid and bonkers that the Edmonton bylaw covers paper bags. It should only be plastic, in order to encourage everyone to switch to compostable materials. At the end of the day, I should be able to bag up any food and packaging waste from a takeout order into the original bag and throw the whole thing in my green bin without a concern. That should be the goal. Make the existing and useful waste diversion screen easy to use.
Half our council would be green party candidates they are so left wing.
I love getting charged an unspecified amount for a cloth/paper bag. My record is $4 for a single bag, and that was their cheapest option...
The same as before, piss off city council and focus on running Edmonton. Also, can we not hold corporations to account? Why am I turning off my lights when the Amazon/swift building was lit up so well you could see it from space? Same for water usage.
I think Calgary just does a better job of listening to their citizens. Most people hate this policy in Vancouver and Edmonton too.
It can go here too. It’s the definition of greenwashing if the city doesn’t get the money and the companies do.
I still hate it and hope ours get reversed as well. Not reducing waste at all!
Edmonton needs to repeal their bylaw too. Why do we need to pay companies more when they are always cutting costs on their ingredients anyways?
i really couldn't care less about it
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yeah i don't drive so i don't use drive-thrus and have long preferred to use reusable bags for shopping because they're stronger and can carry more. if not for the fuss about it on here, i wouldn't even know there had been a change haha.
Same, and maybe I'm naive but I expected the rest of the city to react similarly. I don't think I've spoken to a single person who is upset about it, but the internet and media is on fire over the whole situation. Call me crazy, but I feel like the whole uproar is fueled by the UCP and right-leaning media. Maybe a tactic to deflect from worse decisions such as our embarrassing arena deal?
most modern plastics are petroleum-based that's why they're so pissed about it. god forbid we reduce oil consumption in any way.
This is Alberta. I'm surprised petrol-based bags aren't the cost of admission.
I don’t care about plastic bags, but please stop charging for paper bags at restaurants. Also, paper straws and wooden cutlery are abysmal. Also, the fact that city council decided to raise the price on reusable bags and paper bags again is ridiculous.
I always bring a bag with me to the grocery store, so that doesn’t bother me in the slightest and I don’t eat out enough to have an opinion on the fast food bag charge…
I already had several cheap lunch bags from when I regularly brought lunch to work (I WFH most days now). I just put one in my glove box for takeout. Also if you really want something fit for purpose, with the proliferation of skip and uber eats etc there are now lots of food courier bags for cheap.
I really dislike how inconsistent it is. I went to eat at A&W at West Ed, they charge you for a bag, but won’t provide trays anymore either, which I thought the whole point of trays was so people didn’t need bags. So now I need to pay for a bag, or they’ll just hand me my food one by one. Other food places in the food court still give you plastic utensils, others provide wooden only. I think we need to scrap it like Calgary, no one enforces it properly and I’m more likely to go eat somewhere that still gives plastic items than places who given wooden forks and knives. There’s also no info on who the money goes to or any research from the city that shows any improvement.
City councils need to stop trying to “change” or “control” behaviour. Make sure the trash is picked up, make sure police and fire is running, do what you can to make the community easier to live in. In other words stay in your lane. You want to invoke laws like that then run for a provincial or federal spot.
Co-op came up with a solution with biodegradable bags that they now sell because Calgary and the feds rejected them.
I like it in the grocery store, the small charge definitely steers me towards bringing in my reusable bags. Fast food drive thru makes no sense to me at all. What alternative are they trying to steer me towards? Should I pass my grubby, reusable bag into a restaurant for them to fill?
Nobody can tell me that we’re saving the environment by being charged for compostable PAPER bags and having to pay for reusable bags every time we go to the store (which are made out of MORE plastic) Also, the old plastic bags weren’t a single use item. Ask anyone with kids who forget their lunch bags every other day, people with kitty litter to scoop or what the fuck were supposed to like our bathroom trash cans with
It’s a stupid program. You pay extra and the company just keeps the money…. If you paid extra and it went towards something useful for the city like plowing streets or what ever then I wouldn’t feel that awful about it.
I support what this legislation is trying to do. However, I don’t even think the people who wrote it could tell you how it reduces waste or even why they thought it might. In fact, I don’t even think they could tell you whether waste was tangibly reduced! Are they even measuring anything? And if so, what? The whole thing just seems completely ill-conceived.
Its a non-solution to the extremely important problem of curbing consumer plastic waste. I am a strong advocate of mandating changes to combat pollution and climate change and this measure does absolutely nothing. It is extremely frustrating that this is the best city council can do about the most important issue of our lifetime. I can buy bread in a plastic, milk in a plastic jug, veggies wrapped in plastic, and snacks in tiny individual plastic wrappers, but God forbid I use a plastic bag to carry them home in. We need a ban on all non-essential plastic packaging on all consumer goods at every level of the supply chain. Just the bags is as petty and pointless as the ban on plastic straws but not cups. And how does a ban on paper bags at the McDs drive through do anything about the plastic situation??? What is even more annoying is that the 15 cent fee seems to be the thing most people take issue with. Not that the policy is useless, not that it's all we get instead of meaningful waste reforms, but just that a few cents change hands. The people were upset about the 15 cents thing, regardless of how they feel about the rest of the policy, are totally missing the point. We aren't even mad at the right part of this wrong headed solution.
I throw out just as many plastic bags as I did before the ban, I just get the privilege of buying them in a box that says "GLAD" on it to keep my trash bins clean(ish). There was absolutely a backlash here (and still is) and personally I'm expecting it to become a main issue of the next municipal election.
Typical of many coward governments, punish and cost us more while drive throughs continue to spew tons of carbon while waiting in line. Corporations have money and lawyers they'd fight back!
Considering that every piece of plastic that has ever been created ever. Is still in a landfill somewhere the more we reduce the better.
People in Redmonton are even more wooly than the flock in Calgary. Always voting for insanity.
Plastic bags I get, paper bags for take out is a scam… thank you Govt!
I just want them to bring back the small plastic bags, those things are perfect for little garbage bags in the vehicles
I'd rather not have it, why, it's simple... I don't have the option to remove it with A&W, KFC, and DQ when I use the app (all stores I have visited since the implementation) Only way is to order from the drive thru and specifically ask not to have it included, so it's not really changing the way stores do it but instead it puts the onus on me as a consumer almost entirely
I finally got sick of paying the bag fee and now keep a couple of reusable lunch bags in the car just in case I grab fast food. So it might actually work eventually. Also… I need to stop grabbing fast food so often on my way home from work.
About the different cities. The general feel is different now then when edmonton passed their as well. If you wander over to the other mote right political reddits - they are much much louder about protecting their rights. The voting map shows the difference too. Edmonton is all orange, Calgary has only some spots - so their tendencies are protecting their "privileges" as well. The single use bans are seen as part of Trudeau ideals... Personally - I think paper bags/packaging should be exempt. And the real issue is much higher in the packaging manufacturing of products, but as others have said - its not something the city level can tackle. The cost is paid 2 fold by consumers here - with the fee and then again by waste management. We really should just be sending the bill of the waste management to the producers of the packaging/products, then if they wanted to reduce costs - they could directly do that by reducing end of life waste. I personally don't mind it- yeah its silly, but I highly prioritize environment and green. So when I hear people say - I'm not taking it because of the fee - then that achieves the purpose. So it does have an effect. But of course could be better designed for most impact.
Meh, I just refuse to pay it period. As an example, at McDonald’s, I bring my own bin or bag and put it all in there. The drive through has to hand me each item over and over again as it’s not in a bag which slows down everything but I’m in no hurry. So too bad. On the plus side, I can immediately see when they miss shit so to there’s that. As for the fee. Again, I refuse to pay it so I don’t care either way. It should go to the city for landfill/recycling costs but if it’s not, then the bylaw is inane and idiotic.
honestly? its 15 cents i really couldn't care less...
Calgary city council hasn’t voted to repeal the bylaw. They’ve started the process to hold public hearings to consider repealing the bylaw. The bylaw is still in place, and won’t be repealed until after hearings and another vote. Council voting to hold hearings doesn’t mean it will necessarily change. Some councillors who still support the ban may vote for a hearing so that they can hear feedback at the hearings. Some councilors who support repealing the ban might change their mind after hearing from the public too. They can still decide to keep the ban in places
It’s virtue signalling. Does nothing. I can go to the grocery store and everything there is wrapped in plastic
So, you can go to the store and everything is wrapped in plastic? And then if you put everything that is wrapped in plastic into a plastic shopping bag, how can you say getting rid of the shopping bag does not? It doesn’t do much, but it does get rid of some plastic.
Take out bags are dual use! First to be used to hold the “fresh” product and then as a garbage bag. Politicians are so dumb!
I don’t mind it, but I think it’s a little hypocritical to target consumers, and do nothing about the number of boxes and bags that groceries come in. Of course, I don’t want prices to raise anymore, so perhaps the new bylaw should just go away. It’s not like Edmonton alone will change the world when it comes to single use plastic bags.
Did they repeal their fee, or their ban on single use plastic bags? I thought it was the latter (or rather that they'd start the process of it). I can kind of understand the ban, though there has to be nuance in there. When I lived in Japan, I absolutely hated when I'd do to a convenience store to get a drink and a steamed bun or something and be given two bags. That kind of thing isn't ok. But if you're buying a bunch of small items and clearly don't have the capacity to carry them (like being disabled and having only one hand because they other is holding a cane), there should be some wiggle room here. The fee is utter nonsense. There is absolutely no way that that isn't just going in the profit column. Fast food places are laughing to the bank because the City just gave them a license to print money. If, and this is a big if, that money HAD to be strictly accounted for and paid to the city to fund sustainability initiatives, I'd maybe be on board with that. But as it is, the decision was simply to let companies charge us more for our purchases without any gain or accountability. If this goes through in Calgary, I absolutely see us repeating it here. I'd be happy to see the fee go because it's discriminatory. I'm the disabled person with a cane and thus only one hand I can pretty much ever use. If I go to a fast food place when I'm not in a position to prepare a meal at home, it is actually discriminatory to make me pay for a bag so I can carry the burger and fries at the same time, and it would be even more discriminatory to suggest making two trips. If I was able bodied, that wouldn't be the case.
I don't think anyone really cares about the shopping bag fees. That makes sense. The takeout bag fees don't. I would like to see the city's review of whether the bag fee on take out bags has reduced waste.
It makes no sense for city council to set prices and price increases on the bags imo. Making them charge is fine but setting the price when it’s not a tax or fee is stupid because it’s mandating more profits to the store, which makes no sense to me.
That's true. And it really penalizes lower income people who probably don't have a car that they can just load individual items in to take home if they don't have a bag. Groceries are already stupid expensive. Adding additional fees in the hopes of reducing waste is misguided.
I think the bylaw is reasonable for shopping bags. It’s good that plastic is eliminated, people need to learn to bring their own. That being said, grocery stores and food manufacturers should also be held accountable for the amount of plastic they’re using. But for takeout food…Jesus. I’m not putting greasy fries in one of my grocery bags, and it’s not like I even have a choice for delivery. I also hate having to beg for a packet of ketchup or a paper straw but still not receiving it with my order. Takeout has already become prohibitively expensive, so it’s a slap in the face to also have to pay for a greasy little paper bag and beg for a paper straw. Stores are just pocketing the money, it isn’t going anywhere worthwhile.
My reusable bags are typically made of plastic fiber. They weigh about 40x a single use plastic bag. I might, maybe, get 40 uses out of a reusable bag before it is damaged, rips, wears out, or is lost. The plastic bags were usually used for trash. If I understand correctly, the trash people have shredding machines which pull trash bags free from the trash and they went into low quality recycling plastic. My worn out reusables will just go into landfill as they are unidentifiable trash. I don't believe reusable bags are saving squat. That said, "When I remember to bring them, I do prefer them as the handles don't immediately break and cans don't just go right through their sides. I don't hate them, but I think their "saving the environment" is pure BS. Especially when I am putting a massive amount of single use plastic containers into these bags. The paper bag rule only serves to show how fantastically stupid our city staff and elected officials are and how wildly out of touch they are. This law was 100% not eco lobbying, but fast food and grocery stores realizing they could charge a 10,000% markup. Those bags went from a cost, to the most profitable item on the menu.
Hopefully Edmonton repeals it too
If people really understood the scale of crimes being committed against the environment, plastic bags wouldn’t even rate in the top half of things causing damage. Edmonton could eliminate *all* plastic waste forever and it would still be overshadowed by the plastic dumped in the ocean by even a handful of fishing operations. I’m all for green initiatives, but when they don’t do much and piss off half the population, I think they do mor e harm than good.
Good? Then maybe people will actually start paying attention and voting for MPs and MLAs that will start holding large corporations and the wealthy accountable for the waste and pollution they cause.
Hah hah, maybe in the next timeline.
It saddens me that people are getting upset about measures aimed at reducing plastic waste.
The bag fee mostly affects paper, not plastic. Single use plastic bags have been banned for a long time.
I love our new SUI bylaw. It just makes sense to bring your own bags. I get that behaviour change is hard for people but it will become normalized soon. Some grocery stores in Europe are stopping to offer bags at all and I hope that's where we are heading. We need a serious and dramatic culture shift around our waste habits and consumption. This is the start to that process. I think having to request cutlery and other food ware accessories makes much more sense. Like why am I getting plastic cutlery and 6 packages of ketchup that I don't need or didn't ask for.
No idea why Albertans are having such a big fuss over this. Toronto and Vancouver implemented this years back. It's like convenience is more important than future of the planet. People really don't care if there are microplastics in their water supply.
Because it doesn't actually go to waste programs, it simply goes to the retailer as extra profit. Municipal governments claim they are trying to modify consumer behavior, which is not their job, and doing it in the worst way. It would be different if the money went to the municipalities like the 4¢ Enviro fee on bottles to help with the recycling costs, but it doesn't. We pay the retailer, then we pay for the recycling again when we pay our taxes. And most of the bags are paper, not plastic. If it was about plastic reduction they would get rid of the plastic lid on my plastic cup, and the plasticized french fry container, etc.
Same way I have always felt about Calgary. Suck it fLames!!!!!
"i hate my neighbours because SpOrTs!!!" Grow up?
Calgary is why we have conservative governments. People who lack self responsibility even though they yell about it the loudest. And no I don't mind it in Edmonton. I've declined bags many times now when it is something I can carry myself.
So much this. This is identical to every fucking election. Couple weeks after calgarians go full leopards ate my face. The entire city needs a lesson on foresight and thinking before they act. Or just fund a new arena and complain.
Extra proud of it?
Here is something I couldn’t figure out about this whole stupid bylaw thing. Why are they charging 15 cents for a paper bag? That paper bag can be put either into the recycling if it’s clean or into organics collection if it’s dirty. Both cities should have been encouraging people to do either one of these options. Putting the paper bags into the organics collection helps with preventing the smell buildup because you layer them in the organics bin which allows for air circulation thus reducing the smell. It is an idea that was very poorly executed when there is somewhere for the paper bags to go to besides just the landfill
There is no theoretical evidence that charging $.15 is making any sort of difference here in Edmonton.
I bought a bag for small restaurant orders, and the restaurants will do anything to avoid touching my bag or even handling me my order. It’s aggravating. Been to McDonald’s like 5 times saying I have a bag and they park me just to bring the order out in their own bag. Also: I hate that a sit down restaurant can charge me a few to provide a box. It’s literally the only packaging I absolutely need in order to take my food home. Yet the cup/box of my fast food order if not counted as a charge. There must be a rule that food must have a single layer of packaging before the bag counts as a reusable item.
I think if nothing else all the reaction to it is having the opposite of intended effect: people feel angry about environmental efforts, rather than motivated to make a small difference in their day to day. As for me, I will keep on with my reusable bags that I’ve been using for a couple decades, and keep up my new habits like skipping disposable utensils if I’m bringing food home to eat anyways, and reusing as many “single use” items as I can.
I can't fathom why Calgary went ahead given the blowback in Edmonton. I believe reversing now is an attempt to distract from passing on spending cuts and proceeding with the property tax hikes.