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Recently, a cashier at an Extra Foods grocery store told this reporter
that customers will be paying 5 cents per plastic bag on April 1 (see story below). I wrote a letter to the company to find out more. In their letter response to my inquiry, they write: "It is clear that global warming and other environmental and health challenges require fundamental changes in the way we live and work as a society. We are driven to act because we care, and are mindful of our opportunity to make a difference with simple, but committed actions because of our size and impact in the surrounding communities."
Currently, Canadians take home approximately 55
million plastic bags each week or almost 3 billion bags a year. They
say they are going to reduce it by 1 billion or reduce the amount by
only 1/3. My question is why not all of them? They go on further by saying that when a fee is added, their
research says that 55 per cent fewer bags are used if a fee is charged
as compared to those that have free shopping bags. Which brings one
back to why they said that they are going to reduce the number of bags
by 1/3. It was easy. Why not put in the fee at the beginning? We
could have been down to half as many bags by now.
They go on even further and say that they "are committed to reducing
the environmental impact of our operations by driving innovation in
waste reduction, energy efficiency and sustainable construction." They
don't say that they will be purchasing local produce, meats or locally
processed foods, something that probably would have more
environmental and social benefits than reducing a little plastic
waste.
It will be interesting to see what the other companies' response to this initiative will be.
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