The new Toronto by-law to charge 5¢ per plastic bag is one of those laws that you would never think would happen. Plastic bags are so ingrained into our culture that we use one trillion of them, yet most people don’t reuse them. 5 cents seems small, but it should force everyone to think about their usage instead of taking them for granted.

It’s not a truly drastic change, many grocery stores like No Frills have already been charging for their plastic bags, so ironically the poorer people are already used to reusing and saving money. Although the exception has been Asian grocery stores, they are always on the border of the law, and I would not have been surprised if they didn’t charge for bags. But surprisingly, the one Chinese grocery store I went to on the weekend were charging!

One party that’s lost in the usual discussion is that it affects the bag makers too, and no the bags aren’t all shipped over from China.

Fadhil Yousif, who runs Grand Plastics, a Brampton family business, says orders have dropped 75 per cent in the past two weeks. He used to make 100,000 to 150,000 bags a day. Last week, he stopped his machines.

“The stores are scared to stock their normal orders; they don’t know if they can move them,” he said.

“I don’t know what I’m going to do. I’m waiting to see what happens in the next two weeks.”

At the Canadian Plastics Industry Association, Cathy Cirko praises the plastic bag while lamenting the terrible timing – a recession – in imposing what she calls a “tax.” “It’s not only affecting manufacturers of plastic products, but it does put a negative image on all plastics.” She argues the City of Toronto should have expanded its recycling program and warns that the fee will have a negative impact on the recycling industry in Ontario.

Bags cost one to two cents to make, yet the businesses are charging five cents, she says.

Posted by Kevin in Blogs Tags: environment, toronto