Toronto Mayor Rob Ford should think carefully before scrapping or altering the mandatory 5-cent plastic bag fee, supermarket chains and recyclers say.

The fee has been an effective tool at getting consumers to switch to more environmentally friendly bags, says Jo-Anne St. Godard, executive director of the Recycling Council of Ontario.

“If Mayor Ford is serious about revisiting the 5-cent fee, that’s a bit scary to us,” Goddard said. “Are people going to carry on that habit? I think you’d see it slide back significantly.”

But another group, representing independent grocers, says the program should be scrapped.

“We have from day one opposed the city dictating what a retailer should charge a customer for any product, be it a plastic bag or a can of soup,” said John Scott, president and chief executive officer of the Canadian Federation of Independent Grocers.

“If the city wants to impose a charge, then it should be a tax and all the revenue generated should be earmarked to the environment,” Scott added.

Ford, who campaigned on an anti-tax platform, has reportedly said he plans to review the plastic bag program this year. A lot of people have asked him to scrap the fee or show them proof where the money goes, Ford said.

Calls to the mayor’s office weren’t returned.

The city created the fee, which is mandatory. But retailers collect and keep it and aren’t required to disclose how it’s spent

The Canadian Council of Grocery Distributors, which represents the big supermarket chains, said the fee has been a success at cutting plastic bag use by 71 per cent in its members’ stores.

Some supermarkets have linked the program to new environmental campaigns. The country’s largest supermarket operator, Loblaw Cos. Ltd., has committed to give $1 million a year for three years to the World Wildlife Federation.

But retailers won’t reveal how much the fee has raised or whether it’s all earmarked for environmental projects.

The Canadian Plastics Industry Association, which says the bags cost between a penny and a penny-and-a-half, estimated earlier this year the program had raised $15 million for retailers.

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Toronto is the only jurisdiction in Canada to adopt a mandatory fee to discourage plastic bag use. However, several national retailers have extended the fee to their stores across Canada.

Three provinces — Ontario, B.C. and Alberta — all have voluntary bag reduction programs that commit retailers to reducing bag use by 50 per cent within five years.