Bag it for a nickel at Loblaws

At the Loblaws at Queens Quay and Jarvis, you'll have to pay 5 cents a bag starting Monday.

Says the company

Starting Monday, January 12, 2009, Loblaw corporate and participating franchise stores in the City of Toronto will no longer provide complimentary plastic shopping bags at check-out and charge $0.05 per plastic shopping bag, when they are requested by customers. Toronto is the lead city for the campaign, which will roll out nationally on April 22, 2009, Earth Day.

Research conducted for Loblaw by Leger Marketing in December 2008 revealed that four in five Torontonians (84%) support Loblaw's plan to divert 1 billion plastic shopping bags from landfills in 2009 by implementing a pay for plastic shopping bag program.

snip

To help customers with the transition away from plastic shopping bags, Loblaw is offering a variety of special limited time promotions in its Toronto stores. From January 9th to 18th, our PC G.R.E.E.N. Reusable Shopping Bags (large and regular size) are 50 per cent off. Visit www.loblaws.ca, www.superstore.ca, www.valuemart.ca and www.fortinos.ca for an online coupon for a free G.R.E.E.N. Box with a minimum $25 purchase at participating Toronto stores (see online details for coupons).

The news didn't really go well over some, here's a report from the Toronto Sun

Loblaws will start charging a nickel for plastic bags tomorrow, but some forgetful customers say it’s not enough incentive to bring their own bags.

“I’m not going to be carrying (reusable) bags around day and night,” said Rob Thomson, 73, at the Queens Quay Loblaws while pushing his cartload of plastic-bagged groceries.

“It’s not the solution. I’m not going to be carrying those (reusable) bags with me to the office or in the car because I never know when I’m going to go shopping.

"It’s not always planned,” he adds.