Each week, Grant orders Walmart groceries for pickup at a depot near his home in Toronto. Due to the plastic bag ban, the retailer now packs his items in reusable bags — new ones for each order.
Grant estimates he has acquired about 300 over the past six months.
“It’s a bit crazy,” he said, pointing to a large pile of blue Walmart bags stuffed in the trunk of his car. “In a month, I can be accumulating anywhere from 40 to 50.”
Single-use plastic shopping bags are on their way out in Canada. Nova Scotia, Prince Edward Island and Newfoundland and Labrador have already introduced bans, and on Tuesday, the federal government will begin phasing them out nation-wide.
But the well-intentioned war on plastic bags has had an unintended consequence: As a growing number of retailers eliminate them, some shoppers are amassing piles of reusable bags — more than they could ever reuse.
Larry Grant picks up his weekly Walmart groceries at a depot near his Toronto home. He says the retailer needs to find a way to stop using so many reusable bags for delivery. (David Hill/CBC)
CBC News interviewed several Walmart grocery delivery customers who said that they’re swimming in reusable bags and that the retailer has simply replaced one environmental problem with another.
“Banning the plastic bags was a great move, but it wasn’t thought through,” Grant said. On this day, the weekly groceries for his family of four were delivered in eight reusable Walmart bags. Two of the bags each contained just one item.
“I’m really frustrated,” he said. “I just hope they will think about this failure … and come up with a solution.
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When Walmart announced its plastic bag ban, the U.S.-based company said it was a win for the environment. The bags are problematic because they’re often difficult and costly to recycle. As a result, most end up in landfills or as litter that can enter waterways and harm marine life that mistakenly eat them.
Reusable bags are typically a better alternative — if they earn their keep. Several studies have found the bags must be used a number of times for them to have a less harmful impact on the environment than flimsy, single-use plastic bags.
“Generally speaking, a reusable bag requires more energy and carbon to make relative to a single-use plastic bag,” said Cal Lakhan, a research scientist with the faculty of environmental and urban change at York University in Toronto.
“It tends to be durable and have significantly higher quality, but that higher quality comes at a cost.”
York University research scientist Cal Lakhan says reusable bags must be used multiple times in order for them to have a less harmful impact on the environment than single-use plastic bags. (Spencer Gallichan-Lowe/CBC)
A 2020 United Nations study estimated that in order for it to have less impact on the environment than a single-use plastic bag, a cotton bag needs to be used 50 to 150 times, while a durable, non-woven polypropylene bag (such as the blue Walmart one) must be used 10 to 20 times.
“Just because something is reusable doesn’t necessarily make it good for the environment,” Lakhan said. “While I understand and appreciate the effort to try to minimize single-use plastics, we have to be very prudent in how we choose to do so.”
What’s the solution?
Udi and Natalie Sela of Maple, Ont., north of Toronto, recently went through their stockpile of reusable Walmart bags, creating a sea of blue in their living room. The couple order groceries weekly from the retailer and estimate that, like Grant, they’ve received about 300 so far.
In October, Udi Sela complained to Walmart about the reusable bag problem. He’s still waiting for a fix.
“It just creates more waste, which is what we’re trying to avoid in the first place,” he said. “We can’t return them, we can’t do much with them. There are better ways of doing this.”
The Selas take stock of all the resuable bags they have amassed from Walmart’s grocery delivery. Udi Sela says he complained to the retailer last month about the reusable bag problem. (Darek Zdzienicki/CBC)
In an email, Walmart Canada said it’s exploring ways to cut down on the number of reusable bags in circulation, such as looking at alternatives to reusable bags for grocery delivery.
“We’re continuing to learn and adjust alongside our customers,” company spokesperson Stephanie Fusco said in an email.
She did not provide data on how many customers use Walmart’s delivery service but said it’s available in most parts of Canada.
Metro, which operates in Ontario and Quebec, told CBC News it has already found a solution. The grocer, which has also banned plastic bags, said it uses no bags for grocery delivery. Instead, goods are delivered in a returnable cardboard box or plastic bin. Customers choosing the bin option must collect their goods from it upon arrival.
Walmart eliminates plastic bags in Canada
Plastic bags will no longer be available at Walmart stores across Canada, a move some experts say is to get ahead of Ottawa’s proposed ban on disposable plastics slated to take effect later this year.
Loblaw Companies Ltd. — which operates such grocery stores as Loblaws, Zehrs, No Frills and Real Canadian Superstore — plans to implement a national plastic bag ban early next year. The grocer said it’s exploring sustainable options for grocery delivery, including a program where customers can return their reusable bags.
Loblaw did not answer questions about its delivery method for provinces that have already introduced a plastic bag ban.
Sobeys also did not offer details about its grocery delivery system, but CBC News found the information on its website. Although Sobeys has banned single-use plastic bags at the checkout counter, according to its site, it still uses them for grocery delivery in Ontario. If customers return the bags, Sobeys says it will recycle them.
The retailer also offers grocery delivery in parts of Quebec and says on its website that it uses paper bags for those deliveries and for curbside pickup across Canada.
“Cutting down forest stock, processing, pulping, forming it into actual paper, that manufacturing process itself tends to be more energy and water intensive,” Lakhan said.
Sobeys told CBC News that its paper bags are compostable and made from 70 per cent recycled paper. The company also said it will soon shift to using paper bags for grocery delivery in Ontario.
To ensure Canadians don’t amass too many reusable bags, Environment and Climate Change Canada said in an email that it will work with stakeholders to educate consumers on the merits of reusing them.
The department did not mention any measures focused on retailers.
A recent single-use plastic and paper ban in New Jersey led to numerous complaints that grocery delivery customers were amassing too many reusable bags. The state is now considering remedies, such as requiring delivery services to establish programs to reuse or recycle customers’ unwanted bags.
TOKYO (AP) — Japanese technology group SoftBank swung back to profitability in the July-September quarter, boosted by positive results in its Vision Fund investments.
Tokyo-based SoftBank Group Corp. reported Tuesday a fiscal second quarter profit of nearly 1.18 trillion yen ($7.7 billion), compared with a 931 billion yen loss in the year-earlier period.
Quarterly sales edged up about 6% to nearly 1.77 trillion yen ($11.5 billion).
SoftBank credited income from royalties and licensing related to its holdings in Arm, a computer chip-designing company, whose business spans smartphones, data centers, networking equipment, automotive, consumer electronic devices, and AI applications.
The results were also helped by the absence of losses related to SoftBank’s investment in office-space sharing venture WeWork, which hit the previous fiscal year.
WeWork, which filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection in 2023, emerged from Chapter 11 in June.
SoftBank has benefitted in recent months from rising share prices in some investment, such as U.S.-based e-commerce company Coupang, Chinese mobility provider DiDi Global and Bytedance, the Chinese developer of TikTok.
SoftBank’s financial results tend to swing wildly, partly because of its sprawling investment portfolio that includes search engine Yahoo, Chinese retailer Alibaba, and artificial intelligence company Nvidia.
SoftBank makes investments in a variety of companies that it groups together in a series of Vision Funds.
The company’s founder, Masayoshi Son, is a pioneer in technology investment in Japan. SoftBank Group does not give earnings forecasts.
Shopify Inc. executives brushed off concerns that incoming U.S. President Donald Trump will be a major detriment to many of the company’s merchants.
“There’s nothing in what we’ve heard from Trump, nor would there have been anything from (Democratic candidate) Kamala (Harris), which we think impacts the overall state of new business formation and entrepreneurship,” Shopify’s chief financial officer Jeff Hoffmeister told analysts on a call Tuesday.
“We still feel really good about all the merchants out there, all the entrepreneurs that want to start new businesses and that’s obviously not going to change with the administration.”
Hoffmeister’s comments come a week after Trump, a Republican businessman, trounced Harris in an election that will soon return him to the Oval Office.
On the campaign trail, he threatened to impose tariffs of 60 per cent on imports from China and roughly 10 per cent to 20 per cent on goods from all other countries.
If the president-elect makes good on the promise, many worry the cost of operating will soar for companies, including customers of Shopify, which sells e-commerce software to small businesses but also brands as big as Kylie Cosmetics and Victoria’s Secret.
These merchants may feel they have no choice but to pass on the increases to customers, perhaps sparking more inflation.
If Trump’s tariffs do come to fruition, Shopify’s president Harley Finkelstein pointed out China is “not a huge area” for Shopify.
However, “we can’t anticipate what every presidential administration is going to do,” he cautioned.
He likened the uncertainty facing the business community to the COVID-19 pandemic where Shopify had to help companies migrate online.
“Our job is no matter what comes the way of our merchants, we provide them with tools and service and support for them to navigate it really well,” he said.
Finkelstein was questioned about the forthcoming U.S. leadership change on a call meant to delve into Shopify’s latest earnings, which sent shares soaring 27 per cent to $158.63 shortly after Tuesday’s market open.
The Ottawa-based company, which keeps its books in U.S. dollars, reported US$828 million in net income for its third quarter, up from US$718 million in the same quarter last year, as its revenue rose 26 per cent.
Revenue for the period ended Sept. 30 totalled US$2.16 billion, up from US$1.71 billion a year earlier.
Subscription solutions revenue reached US$610 million, up from US$486 million in the same quarter last year.
Merchant solutions revenue amounted to US$1.55 billion, up from US$1.23 billion.
Shopify’s net income excluding the impact of equity investments totalled US$344 million for the quarter, up from US$173 million in the same quarter last year.
Daniel Chan, a TD Cowen analyst, said the results show Shopify has a leadership position in the e-commerce world and “a continued ability to gain market share.”
In its outlook for its fourth quarter of 2024, the company said it expects revenue to grow at a mid-to-high-twenties percentage rate on a year-over-year basis.
“Q4 guidance suggests Shopify will finish the year strong, with better-than-expected revenue growth and operating margin,” Chan pointed out in a note to investors.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Nov. 12, 2024.
TORONTO – RioCan Real Estate Investment Trust says it has cut almost 10 per cent of its staff as it deals with a slowdown in the condo market and overall pushes for greater efficiency.
The company says the cuts, which amount to around 60 employees based on its last annual filing, will mean about $9 million in restructuring charges and should translate to about $8 million in annualized cash savings.
The job cuts come as RioCan and others scale back condo development plans as the market softens, but chief executive Jonathan Gitlin says the reductions were from a companywide efficiency effort.
RioCan says it doesn’t plan to start any new construction of mixed-use properties this year and well into 2025 as it adjusts to the shifting market demand.
The company reported a net income of $96.9 million in the third quarter, up from a loss of $73.5 million last year, as it saw a $159 million boost from a favourable change in the fair value of investment properties.
RioCan reported what it says is a record-breaking 97.8 per cent occupancy rate in the quarter including retail committed occupancy of 98.6 per cent.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Nov. 12, 2024.
