Canada’s plastic bag ban has had an unintended consequence: a proliferation of reusable luggage piling up in basements, closets and, finally, landfills.
“They’re all over the place,” mentioned environmental researcher Tony Walker. “We’re drowning in them, and we should not be.”
To fight the issue, a number of of Canada’s massive grocers have launched options. Final week, Walmart launched a free nationwide recycling pilot program for the retailer’s reusable blue luggage. Rivals Sobeys and chains owned by Loblaw Firms Ltd. use recyclable paper luggage for grocery supply.
However some environmental consultants argue that paper luggage are additionally problematic and that the perfect options are people who assist clients really reuse their reusable luggage.
“We simply cannot preserve giving [them] out,” mentioned Walker, a professor at Dalhousie College’s College for Useful resource and Environmental Research in Halifax. “We’re solely meant to have just a few of them, and we’re meant to make use of them till they collapse.”
In late 2022, the federal authorities rolled out a ban on the manufacture, import and sale of a number of single-use plastics, together with checkout luggage. The rules are being contested in courtroom, however within the meantime, they continue to be in impact.
The rules have made single-use purchasing luggage scarce in Canada, however they’ve additionally led to the proliferation of reusable luggage, particularly for grocery supply.
“It simply creates extra waste, which is what we’re attempting to keep away from within the first place,” Walmart buyer Udi Sela mentioned in a CBC Information interview in late 2022.
On the time, Sela, who lives in Maple, Ont., estimated his household had acquired about 300 reusable Walmart luggage through grocery supply.
“We won’t return them, we won’t do a lot with them.”
Now, slightly greater than a yr later, Walmart has launched a pilot undertaking to deal with the issue.
It permits clients to pack up their undesirable reusable Walmart blue luggage and ship them — at no cost — to a facility the place they will get a second life.
The way it works
In line with Walmart, luggage in good situation will likely be laundered and donated to charity, primarily Meals Banks Canada. Broken luggage will get recycled into different supplies. Reusable luggage usually cannot go in blue bins as a result of they’re expensive and troublesome to recycle.
Clients should join Walmart’s program, and enrolment is restricted.
Jennifer Barbazza, Walmart’s senior supervisor of sustainability, mentioned the retailer will fine-tune the main points as this system progresses.
“[We] know that some clients have extra reusable luggage than perhaps they want,” she mentioned. “One of many issues that we’re actually excited to find out about from the pilot is buyer acceptance and buyer suggestions.”
Reusable luggage live hire free in closets and automotive trunks throughout the nation. Most main retailers made the change away from single-use plastic luggage a few yr in the past, nevertheless it’s taking time for some clients to catch on. They’re forgetting to carry their luggage with them, and shopping for extra each week.
Udi Sela has already signed up.
“I positively assume it is a step in the fitting route,” he mentioned in an interview on Friday. “It is one thing that wanted to be completed some time in the past. God is aware of we have got a ton of baggage sort of piled up.”
He mentioned he is involved that some clients could discover mailing the luggage a hurdle. Nevertheless, it isn’t deterring Sela, who quickly plans to ship a whole lot.
Passing the buck?
Not everyone seems to be eager on Walmart’s undertaking. Emily Alfred, a waste campaigner with Toronto Environmental Alliance, mentioned donating the luggage to the meals financial institution is simply passing on the issue.
“We have to take away waste from the system fully, and simply sending these someplace else for another person to cope with isn’t actually an answer,” she mentioned.
Alfred mentioned a greater possibility is a program Walmart piloted in Guelph, Ont., in 2022. For a payment, clients might try reusable luggage from an in-store kiosk and later return them to be cleaned and reused.
“That is an actual round reuse system,” she mentioned.
Walmart’s Barbazza mentioned the retailer is constant to discover totally different reusable bag applications, together with ones positioned in shops.
She additionally mentioned she’s assured Canada’s meals banks will make good use of the luggage.
“There’s positively a necessity for sturdy gadgets to distribute supplies to the meals financial institution purchasers.”
The paper drawback
Amongst Canada’s main grocers, solely Walmart affords a reusable bag program for all clients.
Loblaw just lately switched from reusable to recyclable paper luggage for grocery supply. Sobeys didn’t reply to requests for remark, however in keeping with its web site, the grocery store additionally makes use of paper luggage and “reusable choices” for residence supply.
A number of environmental consultants say paper luggage aren’t a very good answer, as a result of their manufacturing leaves a large carbon footprint.
“Paper luggage are an issue,” Alfred mentioned. “It takes loads of power to recycle paper, takes loads of bushes and power to make new paper.”
Loblaw mentioned it continues to discover a wide range of extra sustainable options. “It is a problem we’re dedicated to addressing,” spokesperson Dave Bauer mentioned in an e mail.
Each Walker and Alfred applaud Metro for its grocery supply program, as a result of the grocery store, which operates in Ontario and Quebec, reuses supply supplies.
Metro mentioned clients can get their items delivered in a cardboard field or reusable luggage, which might be returned and used for one more supply. Or clients can go for a plastic bin and take away their groceries from it upon arrival.
Metro doesn’t provide related applications for in-store consumers.
Alfred mentioned the federal authorities ought to introduce rules that mandate retailers undertake efficient reusable bag applications for all clients.
“It is as much as our governments and other people to demand that these corporations do higher,” she mentioned.
However Walker steered that the rules can be arduous to implement and that incentives might be a greater tactic.
For instance, if retailers elevated the value of reusable luggage, consumers is perhaps much less more likely to neglect them once they head to the shop, he mentioned.
“When the price is a disincentive to do an exercise, individuals change their behaviour.”
