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Therefore – as someone who spends about $450 every month (and the equivalent in 2010 dollars over the past two decades), that’s over $5,000 every year.

Fortunately Kingston has at least one option to grocery shop without this charge: Walmart.

But either way – as a long time customer I saw this as a cash grab on Loblaws part under the veil of being environmentally conscious. Charging me for something I use to get free for 20 years.

Paper bags worked for decades and we didn’t have to pay for them.

Those bags could be made from recyclable paper, which may have originally come from sustainable forests, and would degrade much faster – possibly within a few months – or could be recycled yet again.

As a kid I remember plastic bags not being used for groceries at all. everything was carried in from the car in large brown paper bags.

But does anyone remember back when the cashiers would ask if you wanted “paper or plastic”?

…donations that are likely a tax write off anyway?

The Star’s article singles out Loblaws as one of the chains that implemented the 5 cent charge “long before it was required to do so” (*ka-ching*) and pledged to give World Wildlife Fund Canada $1 million a year for the next three years, from partial proceeds and a corporate donation.

“At five cents a bag, a lot of money is being collected,” said Cathy Cirko, vice-president of environment for the Canadian Plastics Industry Association. “And at the end of the day, it’s really the retailer who is benefiting.”

Officials with the Canadian plastics industry say that from estimated profits – around $15 million from plastic-bag fees since June [7 months] – retailers are clearly taking in most of the proceeds.

Retailers told them that a portion of proceeds were being invested in environmental initiatives, but none would disclose how much profit they have made from the fees, nor exactly how much of that was going to associated charities.

Most people assume all that money goes toward an environmental charity or research, but according to a Toronto Star article earlier this year, that’s not the case.

But my first thought was: if using plastic grocery bags is so unfriendly to the environment, how does it make it any more friendly by me handing over a few bucks to Loblaws every trip?

The surface reason for this charge is to deter people from using plastic bags, and instead haul around some reusable bags of their own.

But a year or two ago, the cashier asked if I wanted my groceries bagged.  Something the store has been doing for all those years for free, but now they were going to charge me 5 cents for every bag…

As a result of that, I’ve been shopping almost exclusively at Loblaws ever since – about 20 years now.

Back when I first moved out of my parents’ home, the first few places I lived happened to have Loblaws stores as the closest place to buy groceries.

I’m Taking $200,000 from Loblaws & Giving it to Walmart

I’m Taking $200,000 from Loblaws & Giving it to Walmart : Kingston Herald