SOMBA K'E/YELLOWKNIFE - As of Feb. 1, 2011, every retailer in the NWT will be required by law to charge customers a quarter for every plastic bag.

Qui Pham, owner of the Reddi Mart store in downtown Yellowknife, has bought $13,000 worth of reusable bags in order to phase out single-use plastic bags in her store. - Terrence McEachern/NNSL photo

Ella Stinson, communications planning specialist for the Department of Environment and Natural Resources, said the Feb. 1 date is subject to final approval but will include about 250 retailers across the NWT. The first phase of the Single-Use Retail Bag Program began Jan. 15 with a handful of grocery stores and stores that sell groceries in Yellowknife. Some smaller stores were added in March.

Stores are required to register with the GNWT as a retailer. They then pay the 25 cent levy or surcharge to the distributor when they purchase plastic bags. The stores pass this 25 cent levy on to the customer at the cash register for each bag they use.

The distributor, also registered with the GNWT, transfers the money collected from the levy to the Department of Environment and Natural Resources' environment fund, a fund used to create new waste reduction and recovery projects.

According to the department's Single-Use Retail Bag regulations, the maximum penalty for a retailer refusing to participate may be a $50,000 fine or six months in jail under the Waste Reduction and Recovery Act. Stinson said in an e-mail that from Jan. 15 to June 30 the GNWT's environment fund received $109,000 from the bag fees. This translates to 436,000 bags purchased by stores.

Stinson said her department has been consulting with larger stores such as Wal-Mart and Canadian Tire about how to include them in the latest phase of the program. She said these larger stores have been "pro-active" because they began selling reusable bags in their stores before the single-use bag levy was implemented.

Chris Kondracki, general manager of Yellowknife's Canadian Tire, said his store has been selling reusable bags for a couple of years, and that he supports the GNWT program.

"I think it's a great initiative," he said. "I think it's been working fairly well for the grocery stores. Every time I go shopping myself I always see people with reusable bags. Hopefully, that will continue with our store. There's no doubt plastic bags are a waste."

Qui Pham, owner of the downtown Reddi Mart, said her experience with the program got off to a bad start, but since then, she's warmed to the idea. Reddi Mart was included in the program in March, but she appealed the decision because she didn't think her store met the criteria as a grocery store. She said she softened her stance against the program when someone from the GNWT met her in person and told her every store was going to eventually be included.

Since she started informing customers they would be charged an extra 25 cents for a plastic bag, she said about 90 per cent have refused to purchase one. She said this made her realize that the next time she needs to order plastic bags, she'll order significantly fewer.

The last time she ordered plastic bags in January, she estimates she ordered between 7,000 and 10,000. Now, she's changing her focus to selling reusable bags with the store's logo on the front. Since August, she has purchased about 20,000 of the bags at a cost of 65 cents each, totalling $13,000. In the first couple of weeks, she gave away the canvas bags away for free. Since then, she has charged 50 cents.

She said the bags are a good way to promote the store but also a chance for the store to be more environmentally friendly, and for customers to realize they can save money by using reusable bags each time they visit the store.

Susan Schutta, director of corporate affairs with Wal-Mart Canada, said in an e-mail the company can't comment on legislation that it hasn't had a chance to review in detail. She did say the company is committed to being environmentally sustainable, and that the company's goal is to reduce its plastic shopping bag waste by 50 per cent by 2013. Yellowknife's Wal-Mart store has been using reusable bags for about two years.

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