Some of the Canadian companies that once championed fees for plastic shopping bags have quietly changed policy and are now handing them out for free.

Indigo Books & Music announced a plastic bag reduction program in June 2010, saying customers would be charged 5-cents per plastic bag to help reduce the use of plastic bags and waste. The money would go towards World Wildlife Fund Canada, the company said in a release.

Today, however, customers at Indigo’s Toronto locations can get plastic bags for free. Customer feedback prompted the company to phase out the fee over the past couple of years, Janet Eger, Indigo’s vice president of public affairs, said in an email.

“Upon receiving ongoing criticism at our stores regarding the collection of the fee outside of the mandated municipalities we have chosen to provide reusable bags for sale, while offering both paper and plastic bags at no cost at the customer’s request,” she said.

The company complies with the regulations in municipalities that have banned single-use shopping bags, or require a fee to be charged, Eger noted. Several North American cities require retailers to charge for plastic bags, while a few others – including Fort McMurray, Alta. – have banned them outright.

Indigo isn’t the only retailer to do away with the fee. Home Depot removed the fee from all of its stores to “ensure consistency for customers,” the company’s media relations coordinator, Emily DiCarlo, said in an email.

“While we still provide the option of plastic bags, we empower our customers to choose what’s best for them – whether it is by purchasing one of our two reusable eco-bags, bringing in their own bag or bin, or not using a bag at all,” she said.

Grocery giant Loblaw, too, has changed plastic bag policy in at least one store. The company had eight plastic bag-free stores when debate over single use bags consumed Toronto city council in 2012, but today that number has dropped to six. One of the stores has closed, and customers at another “asked for more options,” Melinda Metcalfe, the company’s director of public relations, said in an email.

Other Loblaw stores charge a 5 cent fee for plastic bags, an approach that has reduced the number of plastic bags leaving stores by more than six billion since 2007, Kevin Goh, the company’s vice president of corporate affairs and communications, said in a statement.

Plastic bags have been a contentious issue in Toronto for years. City council started requiring stores to charge for the bags in 2009, but Mayor Rob Ford pledged to do away with the fee. When he asked council to scrap the charge, they voted to ban plastic bags outright instead. Facing a lawsuit from the plastics industry, council later overturned the ban.

The years of back and forth bylaws eventually leaves Toronto currently without either a fee or a ban, allowing retailers to make their own policies.

Reports from both the city and companies show, however, that consumers are less likely to pick plastic shopping bags when they come with a fee. Use of plastic bags dropped by 53 per cent – or 215 million bags – in the three years after the fee was implemented, said a 2012 City of Toronto report.

Shoppers Drug Mart has seen a steep decrease since introducing a 5 cent fee in 2010, said Tammy Smithman, the company’s vice president of communications and corporate affairs. Shoppers continues to charge for plastic bags.

“We’ve found that it’s been quite successful in helping us reduce the overall amount of bags that are issued,” Smithman said.

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Mayor Ford declared Toronto’s plastic bag debate dead last year. END

With files from Star archives.

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