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.
TORONTO – Roots Corp. may have built its brand on all things comfy and cosy, but its CEO says activewear is now “really becoming a core part” of the brand.
The category, which at Roots spans leggings, tracksuits, sports bras and bike shorts, has seen such sustained double-digit growth that Meghan Roach plans to make it a key part of the business’ future.
“It’s an area … you will see us continue to expand upon,” she told analysts on a Friday call.
The Toronto-based retailer’s push into activewear has taken shape over many years and included several turns as the official designer and supplier of Team Canada’s Olympic uniform.
But consumers have had plenty of choice when it comes to workout gear and other apparel suited to their sporting needs. On top of the slew of athletic brands like Nike and Adidas, shoppers have also gravitated toward Lululemon Athletica Inc., Alo and Vuori, ramping up competition in the activewear category.
Roach feels Roots’ toehold in the category stems from the fit, feel and following its merchandise has cultivated.
“Our product really resonates with (shoppers) because you can wear it through multiple different use cases and occasions,” she said.
“We’ve been seeing customers come back again and again for some of these core products in our activewear collection.”
Her remarks came the same day as Roots revealed it lost $5.2 million in its latest quarter compared with a loss of $5.3 million in the same quarter last year.
The company said the second-quarter loss amounted to 13 cents per diluted share for the quarter ended Aug. 3, the same as a year earlier.
In presenting the results, Roach reminded analysts that the first half of the year is usually “seasonally small,” representing just 30 per cent of the company’s annual sales.
Sales for the second quarter totalled $47.7 million, down from $49.4 million in the same quarter last year.
The move lower came as direct-to-consumer sales amounted to $36.4 million, down from $37.1 million a year earlier, as comparable sales edged down 0.2 per cent.
The numbers reflect the fact that Roots continued to grapple with inventory challenges in the company’s Cooper fleece line that first cropped up in its previous quarter.
Roots recently began to use artificial intelligence to assist with daily inventory replenishments and said more tools helping with allocation will go live in the next quarter.
Beyond that time period, the company intends to keep exploring AI and renovate more of its stores.
It will also re-evaluate its design ranks.
Roots announced Friday that chief product officer Karuna Scheinfeld has stepped down.
Rather than fill the role, the company plans to hire senior level design talent with international experience in the outdoor and activewear sectors who will take on tasks previously done by the chief product officer.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 13, 2024.
VANCOUVER – Mediated talks between the union representing HandyDART workers in Metro Vancouver and its employer, Transdev, are set to resume today as a strike that has stopped most services drags into a second week.
No timeline has been set for the length of the negotiations, but Joe McCann, president of the Amalgamated Transit Union Local 1724, says they are willing to stay there as long as it takes, even if talks drag on all night.
About 600 employees of the door-to-door transit service for people unable to navigate the conventional transit system have been on strike since last Tuesday, pausing service for all but essential medical trips.
Hundreds of drivers rallied outside TransLink’s head office earlier this week, calling for the transportation provider to intervene in the dispute with Transdev, which was contracted to oversee HandyDART service.
Transdev said earlier this week that it will provide a reply to the union’s latest proposal on Thursday.
A statement from the company said it “strongly believes” that their employees deserve fair wages, and that a fair contract “must balance the needs of their employees, clients and taxpayers.”
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 12, 2024.
MONTREAL – Travel company Transat AT Inc. reported a loss in its latest quarter compared with a profit a year earlier as its revenue edged lower.
The parent company of Air Transat says it lost $39.9 million or $1.03 per diluted share in its quarter ended July 31.
The result compared with a profit of $57.3 million or $1.49 per diluted share a year earlier.
Revenue in what was the company’s third quarter totalled $736.2 million, down from $746.3 million in the same quarter last year.
On an adjusted basis, Transat says it lost $1.10 per share in its latest quarter compared with an adjusted profit of $1.10 per share a year earlier.
Transat chief executive Annick Guérard says demand for leisure travel remains healthy, as evidenced by higher traffic, but consumers are increasingly price conscious given the current economic uncertainty.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 12, 2024.
