Now, when you come to London Drugs, bring your bags – or bring your nickels. Canadians use up to 15 BILLION plastic bags every year.(1) That’s a lot of potential to negatively affect our environment, waterways and wildlife. Together, we can do better.
Why a fee? Because fees work to reduce bag waste. When the UK started charging for bags, Wales and Ireland saw a 75% – 90% DECREASE in single-use plastic bags.(2) Research also shows 53 per cent of Canadians feel stores should charge a fee for plastic bags.(3)
Do we charge for every bag? Regular plastic bags are the majority of bags we hand out. So our fee is focused on reducing their use. Specialty bags in the cosmetic and pharmacy departments are not affected.
Where does the money go? Our plastic bag reduction fee goes to cover bag costs, and to help support our What’s the Green Deal recycling programs. We take back more items for recycling than any other retailer in our category. (Around 11 Million pounds a year!) Proceeds from bag fees will help us grow our Green Deal programs and keep recycling free for our customers.
Remember, you can also recycle plastic bags and other soft plastics, right at your local London Drugs store. When you do have plastic bags to get rid of, bring them to us. With millions of Canadians shopping every day, if we each used even ONE less bag, (and recycled the rest) that would save a LOT of plastic waste.
(1) Source: Greener Footprints Society http://www.greenerfootprints.com/plastic-bag-facts/
(2) Source: Article – The Telegraph, October 2015 – http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/economics/11912052/Plastic-bag-charge-the-unintended-consequences-of-the-5p-deterrent.html
(3) Source: Angus Reid Poll, Canada, 2012 http://angusreidglobal.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/06/2012.06.13_Bags_CAN.pdf
