The LCBO completed a phase-out of paper bags last September, saying at the time the switch would divert 2,665 tonnes of waste from landfills.Fred Lum/the Globe and Mail
The Ontario government’s liquor retailer says it will comply with a request from Premier Doug Ford and once again offer customers free paper bags, after having phased them out last year for environmental reasons.
The Premier wrote a short letter, dated Sunday, to George Soleas, president and CEO of the provincially owned Liquor Control Board of Ontario, asking that he take “immediate steps to reverse the decision to remove paper bags from the LCBO’s retail locations.”
Mr. Ford wrote in the letter that the decision to charge customers for reusable bags is wrong when “Ontario families are already struggling to make ends meet.”
The Premier also said the LCBO’s bag policy had left “people stuck openly carrying alcohol in public when leaving a LCBO store.” And Mr. Ford argued the “environmental merits of this decision are questionable at best,” as paper bags are recyclable.
In an e-mailed statement on Monday, the LCBO said it had “received direction from the provincial government to take steps to reintroduce single-use paper bags at LCBO retail locations.” It said it could not say when the bags would return but would “share more details with our valued customers in the coming weeks.”
The LCBO had completed a phase-out of paper bags last September. The retailer encouraged customers to bring their own reusable bags, or buy ones made from recycled plastic from the LCBO at a cost of up to $2.95 each. Cardboard boxes and carriers were still available for free.
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The government-owned liquor retailer said at the time that the switch from paper bags would divert 2,665 tonnes of waste from the province’s landfills. The LCBO said it handed out 135 million “single-use” paper bags a year and the change would save the equivalent of more than 188,000 trees annually. The retailer stopped using single-use plastic bags more than 15 years ago.
NDP Opposition Leader Marit Stiles said the Premier’s intervention in the paper bag issue shows he has the wrong priorities, telling reporters that Mr. Ford should instead be focused on the problems in the province’s health care system.
“I don’t know where he’s decided that’s the big priority. I think he should be spending his time thinking about things like this, where people, 2.3 million Ontarians, are without a family physician right now,” Ms. Stiles said.