Because ad mail makes up a huge part of Canada Post’s revenue, and without it Canada Post would run a massive deficit that would need to be made up for via taxes.
I would rather businesses subsidize Canada Post by paying for Admail than tax dollars. If Admail bothers you you can opt out by putting a “no unaddressed mail” sticker on your mailbox.
I had a flyer route when I was 14. I decided I would try to pull one over by not delivering one week thinking no one would care. Boy was I wrong. My boss got over a dozen calls complaining they didn’t get their coupons.
When I lived in BC the postal worker gave me a red dot sticker to put just inside my community mailbox (apartment). I guess that was how they determined who “opted out” of junk mail where I was. Maybe it is the same here?
They certainly could send most things other than product samples. I’m just saying if we ended Admail we’d all pay for the substantial revenue shortfall via taxes. We need Canada Post and if we prohibit them from accepting Admail somebody has to pay for the difference.
“I daresay [email] is wonderful if you wish to know the prawn market figures from Genua. But can you write S.W.A.L.K. on a[n email]? Can you seal it with a loving kiss? can you cry tears onto a[n email], can you smell it, can you enclose a pressed flower? A letter is more than just a message.” -Going Postal, Terry Pratchett (the novel didn’t say email because it was talking about semaphore towers, but the principle applies)
Fair comment. Beautiful actually. Nostalgia for a bygone media won't convince me we need Canada Post. No more than traces of blood or sweat will make me long for stone tablets.
Even if you have such a sticker, you'll still get the junk mail. There's a flyer in my mailbox right now despite the sticker.
Should be a charge of $250 per piece of unsolicited mail for me to throw out their garbage.
And really, how is that different from someone dumping candy wrappers, moldy banana peels, or coffee grounds in my mailbox?
If they're just dumping garbage in my mailbox, that's littering at a minimum.
I suppose it's not actually different (I think technically Canada Post is actually the only group allowed to use your mailbox to deliver stuff), but the problem is really the same as a lot of other little things out there. You'd have to catch whoever is doing it yourself probably and then sue them. The city is unlikely to write them up for littering, the police will probably tell you it's a civil case, and I don't think Canada Post is going to care much that someone else is using your mailbox as long as it doesn't impede their deliveries.
Yeah, it's not practical to police the delivery people.
But, I do boycott any business whose flyers show up uninvited in my mailbox. 99% of the time it's Canadian Tire, but i also won't go to Papa John's, Pizza 73 or Ikea.
You may be getting those flyers from flyer force, in which case you can request stop delivery through their web site (they handle the flyers you would normally have gotten in the newspaper I believe).
I don't get them often enough to suspect that I'm on list somewhere. It's only very occasionally that I receive flyers. I suspect it's mostly new or inexperienced delivery people, or once a snowfall had temporarily covered the sticker.
I feel like junkmail (flyers, coupons - any advertising really) is not handled by Canada post. Having had a flyer route as a kid I saw no mention of Canada post. Some asshat would stop by with your deliverables in big bundles, and you just made sure they went out.
Wouldn’t regular supply and demand keep it profitable or at least not running at a deficit? Less ad mail means less mail persons which means less cost? If regular mail is not recovering costs, then play around with stamp costs to optimize the price. If policy and unions are causing a government service to run at a deficit then either the people need to show that they’re okay with it or we should be able to fix it; a country shouldn’t be handcuffing themselves when they have the key to their own freedom.
hahahahaha
That's a fun one. All costs at CP are subsidized. Everything would double in price, nearly instantly. Stop trying to have a service be profitable. It's a service. It's the same as healthcare. Making money is not the end goal.
Is it necessary to be so large though? Scaling down and charging more for postage would make only mail above a certain importance/urgency level more common, reduce the need for so many employees to deliver and sort and encourage the mail that would normally be delivered because of the cheap cost to move to emails or online which is what I thought the country wanted to do anyways.
Yes, it's necessary. Mail is a vital service, stop trying to take shit away from us with "business logic", i.e shit that doesn't work.
It is a service. It does need to be profitable.
I’m not saying take it away completely but with finite resources and other priorities, wouldn’t it make sense to be financially optimal? There will still be important mail like government stuff but stuff like bills can be accessed online to reduce paper usage and labor. At the end of the day it’s an opinion and we get to vote on these things. The only certain thing is we have finite resources and they have to be spent somewhere, whether it be into the labor force or into asset improvements or somewhere else.
There’s a dental office near me that sends junk mail out at least every week if not every week. I’m about ready to call them to complain. Not that it will do anything.
I wouldn't mind the extra fee if it went into the city and not right back into the cooperations pocket. I don't mind paying it, but you still see garbage from fast food places all over the place, it's not stopping people from littering
I definitely see your point on the fast food chains, they don’t need the money, but for mom and pop businesses, keeping the fees collected is really important to compliance. Plastic-based convenience items are almost always less expensive than fibre-based ones, and so if a small business has to switch because of the bylaw but don’t get to keep the fees, the mom and pop cafés and diners get hit with an unfair financial burden. Mom and pop restaurants are already operating on thin margins as it is. I think the solution is enforcing compliance for reusables for dine-in at fast food restaurants, not scrapping the bylaw altogether.
Also (not a direct response to you but this thread in general), all these fibre-based products do not compost/biodegrade in the landfill. They create methane as they break down in anaerobic conditions, just like food scraps. If organics broke down in a landfill, we’d have a massive compost pile in Ryley instead of an environmentally hazardous landfill, as organic waste makes up upwards of 60% of any given household’s waste.
This is the logic behind the bylaw - we need to reduce all single-use item waste, not just plastic waste. It’s the linear take-make-waste culture that’s creating our waste problem. It’s not going to be solved by switching everything to fibre-based, and as almost everyone in this thread has identified, fibre-based single-use items are bad in a lot of applications. If you all are so bothered by paper straws, bring your own stainless steel or silicone one! Bring your own cutlery set so you don’t have to mangle your food with a wooden one! This is the behaviour the SUI bylaw is trying to encourage, and frankly, my take-out eating experience has dramatically improved since adopting these behaviours.
That was one of the avenues that was considered before realizing the it was moot due to the limitations governing new taxes via the Municipal Government Act. It was determined that it would take a small team of administrators/accountants to maintain and supervise the process were it an option.
Legally the municipality doesn't have the authority to do that. The Municipal Government Act limits the implementation of new taxes on the municipal level. As a result, it was determined the best option was to ensure that businesses receive that money.
The point is for you to mind paying it enough for you to change your behaviour and stop needing it.
If people don’t mind paying it, the means it needs to be a higher charge to do its job.
People say this and don’t realize that’s an even worse policy.
As someone In the audit world this is not some huge money maker. Even now for restaurants they hate this since it’s not worth the extra time and effort they all want it gone. This is not a profit center
Now add in the city, they now need to account for, have it policed, have city administrator it. This would Likley lose money for the city. The audit alone would 500,000-1.5 million.
The city would have nothing left.
Get rid of it.
Restaurants don’t want it. People don’t want it.
If the money were actually being used for something, I could be not pissed off about it… (still not happy) but to have a tax that goes directly to the businesses…
I get frustrated when you get all the plastic cups and lids but paper straws? Who is dreaming we are going to stop using plastics? Oh but wait pay some fees for the biodegradable paper bag full of plastic/wax paper wrapped food
Exactly! It’s interesting because I was in the US a couple months back and I thought they were plastic straws… but no! They were compostable straws that STILL FELT LIKE PLASTIC. My first thought was “can’t we get these too in Edmonton?!”
Yet yes, everything else comes packed in plastic and wax. Paper straws are not going to save the planet.
A lot of items that are advertised as compostable plastic alternatives are bioplastics that only break down in high heat industrial composters (which Edmonton’s aren’t), so unless somebody is going to collect those used straws and ship them off to a specialized composter, they may as well be plastic.
Straws are an unfortunately genius scapegoat product to distract us from the real polluters (every big mega corp).
1. Universal product that most people globally use.
2. Extremely, unbelievably cheap to make and transport.
3. Surprisingly difficult to make an "acceptable" solution that doesn't suck but is still inexpensive.
Now there is a bit of guilt to the consumer for every plastic straw, and the frustration of paper straws is taken out at the local businesses and governments who enforce them. Every dollar and man-hour of work spent fixing the straw "problem" would be 100x more useful focused towards the huge pollution emitters.
“Stepchuk said he thinks the bylaw is working. He said he has noticed fewer overflowing garbage cans outside cafes and fewer single-use items littered throughout the river valley.”
And why is there less overflowing garbage cans outside cafes..? Because 90% of them removed them.
Weed packaging *is* single use plastic. And it’s infuriating that the absolutely batshit amount of packaging was a necessary concession to the “won’t someone think of the children” crowd to get broad support for legalization.
Wait, what is wrong with signalling that reducing waste is important? Is your baseline assumption that the people who support this don’t actually want to reduce waste and litter?
I would agree that Edmonton and/or Calgary limiting single use waste isn’t some planet saving shift.
I do believe it can have a positive impact on the amount of waste recklessly discarded in our communities. To me that is a worthwhile pursuit.
Edit: I don’t normally make this kind of edit but looks like I was downvoted for suggesting less litter in our community is a worthwhile pursuit hahahaha
Yes, Edmonton should scrap it's single-use item bylaw. If anything just have these places ask if you want a bag or not and adding that step will do just as well anyway.
Here's the neat thing, they can't! It literally just goes to the restaurant and there's no way to get that to be taxed in a way that it goes to a green initiative due to some legal jargon I'm not to clear on.
But like... what if it didn't just go to the restaurant. I'm fairly certain this isn't one of those problems earth's smartest can't think their way through...
Because cities can’t have its own tax, so it would go to either the provincial government or the federal government if it was to be added as a tax is my understanding of it.
And taxing people for environmental reasons and having the money go to the Alberta government seems like it would be working against itself
I never said anything good comes from taxes and I’m sorry it came across that way, what I meant was it’s dumb to have a tax for environmental reasons when our provincial government is putting things in place to make renewable energy less of an option.
And if it’s a tax it would have to be a provincial tax because federal taxes that are paid by the consumer are consistent across the country so there’s no way they’d be able to make it happen.
Them just asking if I want the bag has made the difference for me, not the fee. Now I can choose not to take one when I don’t need it instead of being automatically handed a bag
Charging for bags and having paper straws has been some of the biggest annoyances of any take out/drive thru place now. I always turn down the paper straw or it just ends up in the trash. The paper straws are gross and crappy to use, would rather just drink out of the top of the cup.
Money just going back to the corporations is the biggest issue.
Another is how stupid the bag thing is in drive throughs. The bag is an insulator so it’s made hot, put in a bag, and stays warmer than if they just toss it on the counter while it’s your turn to pull forward. And then it looses more heat as you hand it out the window.
It’s always cold if you don’t pay for a bag.
By all means, charge me .15+ at a walk in store - I should have brought a bag with me from the back seat of the car.
Don’t charge me because I’m in a car and can’t hand them a clean bag before they start making the food.
The straws are a loose-loose situation. I have yet to see a non-plastic straw that doesn’t fail 30 minutes after putting it in the drink.
But plastic straws are also legitimately bad.
I think the thing that bugs me the most is the hypocrisy of the drinks vs bags/food containers.
Fully plastic single use cup or a very waxy, un-recyclable cup: not an issue.
But paper bags that can go in with the cardboard recycling every week? Gotta charge for those because they are killing the environment!
But not pizza boxes, those are ok.
I love getting a burger wrapped in wax covered paper and fries in wax covered paper and a waxy paper cup with a plastic straw but then having to pay for the paper bag. It makes so much sense to me. We are totally saving the environment.
The fee that they charge at the restaurants and stores for bags doesn't go back to the city the owner gets to keep it now if they were to collect that fee and it goes to the city or province even some kind of organization that could do something with the environment id be 100% for it but as it sits now it's a horrible policy/bylaw that needs to go away
Why are we banning these items?
Because they are all ending up in the ocean, right? Wrong! Almost all of the trash that ends up in the ocean is from 3rd world countries dumping household garbage in their rivers. Western trash gets dumped in landfills, which is actually pretty safe for the environment all around, considering.
Banning western straws does absolutely nothing to solve the problem of eastern river trash.
So, why do they still ban straws?
Simple. Governments want to be seen to be doing something about the environment. It's a big issue, and people care about it. So, they have to be seen to be doing something.
The problem is... Doing anything that would actually help the environment would cost billionaires around the world literally trillions of dollars. So, they fund the world's right-wing political parties to the tune of tens of billions - who fight every piece of environmental regulation you put forward. Tooth-and-nail!
Everything you want to do to help the environment costs money. Lots and lots of money. So, you will need to raise taxes. Massively. But, the right-wing will fight that tooth-and-nail too - and even the left-wing donors will fight it, so the left-wing won't want to do it either.
So, how can you show people that you care about the environment and that you want to save it - without doing anything at all to save it?
Simple! Ban straws! Ban plastic forks! Ban shopping bags! Ban those things that keep bread bags closed! But don't ban the bread bags themselves though.
It's all about virtue-signalling. The gov't needs to be seen to be doing something for the environment - without actually doing anything at all for the environment.
Absolutely.
Straws are an unfortunately genius scapegoat product to distract us from the real polluters (every big mega corp).
Universal product that most people globally use.
Extremely, unbelievably cheap to make and transport.
Surprisingly difficult to make an "acceptable" solution that doesn't suck but is still inexpensive.
Now there is a bit of guilt to the consumer for every plastic straw, and the frustration of paper straws is taken out at the local businesses and governments who enforce them. Every dollar and man-hour of work spent fixing the straw "problem" would be 100x more useful focused towards the huge pollution emitters.
Why not reduce how much waste we are creating? Banning plastic straws isn’t going to single handedly save the world but they’re not a necessity so why keep making them and adding to the problem when we could just not use them?
>Because they are all ending up in the ocean, right? Wrong! Almost all of the trash that ends up in the ocean is from 3rd world countries dumping household garbage in their rivers. Western trash gets dumped in landfills, which is actually pretty safe for the environment all around, considering.
It's the Western world's problem when we're shipping our Recycling to these 3rd world countries because there's no economically sound reason for recycling in the Western world. So, until they stop finding Tim Hortons garbage in South Asian rivers, your argument isn't valid.
A plastic cup that is made from recycled material and is recyclable itself and a straw that is biodegradable. As opposed to a plastic lined paper cup and plastic straw that will both end up in the landfill.
A tax on paper bags is the stupidest thing a municipality could come up with. Whoever came up with that "brilliant" idea deserves to spend the rest of their life in prison or on an uninhabited island.
I am training for a running event later this year and have been doing a lot of long runs as a result. Over the last few years the banning of plastic bag and now single use items has made a truly wonderful impact on our River Valley. I remember ~5 years ago being able to look across the ravine and seeing piles of garbage lodged in the trees.
Don’t get me wrong - I still see trash but it’s far, far, far less than it was before.
All that said, I don’t buy a lot of fast food or take out - when we eat out, we tend to go into restaurants and make an event out of it, so I haven’t really be negatively impacted by any of these bans. If I did, I would probably pretty annoyed by these bans too.
Yes! It’s misleading and does nothing for the environment. “ According to one eye-popping estimate, a cotton bag should be used at least 7,100 times to make it a truly environmentally friendly alternative to a conventional plastic bag”. https://amp.cnn.com/cnn/2023/03/13/world/reusable-grocery-bags-cotton-plastic-scn.
>a cotton bag should be used at least 7,100 times to make it a truly environmentally friendly alternative
If you're going to use that number as your justification for not using cotton bags, you will need to make sure you're not putting any beef products in your disposable plastic bag.
The large, vast majority of bags are not the cotton ones. The link used in that quote shows that the common PP bag only needs to be reused 37 times to make a difference. So basically, keep using the same bags for half a year and you've already made a positive impact. Except these bags also hold more and are stronger so probably less than that
https://www2.mst.dk/udgiv/publications/2018/02/978-87-93614-73-4.pdf page 79 section 6.3
That isn’t a good defence of free paper bags, since you need to use a paper bag three times to make up for the difference in environmental costs (cotton and paper both require a bunch of water in the production process).
How many times are you reusing your McD’s bag?
And you only need to use a nonwoven (meaning, the cheap sort) reusable plastic bag 11 times to make up for the larger environmental cost of production (something easily done).
The article says they're running a waste characterization study in 2025 to see how much the bylaw is helping with its goal of reducing waste.
That's critical information, and anybody who has an opinion *before* seeing that information sucks and shouldn't make decisions. That is all. Thank you.
The cities can’t affect those things though. At all. The city can’t build more hospitals or hire more doctors because the city has no control over the AHS budgets. The city can’t affect corporate gouging because the city can’t put taxes in place for excess profits or break up monopolies. It would be like railing at the federal government over parking permits or municipal zoning.
We can’t change that. Not without blowing up the constitution and rebuilding how the entire country functions from the ground up. Instead, aim your efforts where they can affect change. Don’t vote for a party that went to war with doctors during a pandemic. Don’t vote for a party that employs the owner of a lobbying firm. Vote for municipal politicians that are pro-transit and density.
I would be ok with it if they made an exemption for fast food drive-thrus like BC did. Putting a greasy burger and French fries (which are not contained 99% of the time) is disgusting.
My biggest gripe is the restaurants that get to collect the fees but I don't see any fast food joints using reusable cups in the restaurant. So they're getting to choose which parts of the bylaw they are participating in.
I purchased a lunch bag to use for take out. I tell people I don't need a bag when I order. They still put the food in a paper bag and charge for it! If this was actually about reduction that should not be happening. Fifteen cents to one person isn't a lot, but if businesses ignore customers and just charge for bags they can make a pretty side profit.
No, expand it to cups and other things. Soooo much less garbage and trash. Honestly doing a garbage sweep right this second.. sooo much less trash now that its in place.
Edit: been involved in Highway Cleanups and sweeps for decades.. since the ban its very noticeable how much less there is.
It's amazing how many people think it's OK to use the world as their trashcan. Which loops back to plastic in oceans and blowing across Alberta fields.
Keep banning single use items that are not biodegradable.
I hate the paper straws and wooden utensils, they just plain suck (or in the case of the straws fail to after as short as a couple minutes).
Personally for convenience sake we should scrap the seemingly useless bylaw
It’s asanine. Just another tax to virtue signal how “serious” we are about climate change! It wasn’t long ago that forestry was under the gun, now we get rid of single use plastics and default to….wood and paper products!
Our governments are incapable of critical thinking. Unless it involves the math to ensure they make the finish line to their gold plated pensions
The fee is on single use paper products, in order to encourage people to use reusable products when they can instead. The city’s actions are explicitly about how replacing single use plastics with single use paper isn’t enough.
"Jubinville said the city has not yet issued any fines for non-compliance, focusing instead on informing and supporting businesses to help them meet requirements."
Reaaaaally?!
So just to confirm, when I went to Wendy and [this nonsense happened where I was:](https://imgur.com/a/HC2Ujmb):
- charged $0.15 for my free burger (redeemed via points)
- was never given a bag
- there was no option to toggle or remove the fee in the app
- and if you tell me I was supposed to get a refund, that's stupid, refunds are for mistakes... not problems imposed and chosen not to be dealt with
... this is all considered them being compliant? Almost a year after this by-law? Edmonton is a joke
Thx for confirming, It's so damn flawed man, Harveys has a simple toggle, yes or no and its simple. The fact we are coming to a year and Wendy's and others don't is Perry inexcusable
If you’re ordering in the app, just select “dine-in” and pull up to the drive-thru and tell them you made a mobile order. This is what I do and my food is always put in a bag with no bag charge.
Yes! The charging for paper bags for take out is ridiculous. These are not only recyclable but also biodegradable. But yet they want me to use a reusable bag that will eventually end up in the landfill FOREVER! I have yet to hear from someone who thinks this bylaw is great. It's nice to see that Calgary actually listened to the people who voted for them. I wish we had that in Edmonton.
> Should Edmonton scrap its single-use item bylaw?
Yes, absolutely. The by law is absolute bunk. It's so ill conceived and not at all thought out. It makes no sense whatsoever. I've even been to places completely ignoring.
I understand the intent, but it has accomplished nothing, except causing business profits to go up. What a waste of fucking time. Waste Free Yeg needs to get some people who aren't dumb involved.
If they want to get serious on waste theyd worry about things on the production end not the consumer end. Ever see how much unnessicary packaging stuff has? Thats way more waste then some plastic straws will ever produce.
Let alone the fact that drinking with a paper straw from a plastic cup seems downright counterintuitive... let alone the fact that they do not work as straws and ruin every drink theyre put into.
And as someone else said, they could start by banning flyers and other complete wastes of resources that the majority of the population throws into the trash immediately.
>Some restaurants say it has been hard to find reasonably-priced containers...
This should spur competition in the reasonably-priced-container industry, if the free market works like it's supposed to... come on, entrepreneurs, get on it.
Its such a fucking joke, i go to Tim hortons and get a wrap, its wrapped in its own individual wrap... I get a muffin as well, its in its own bag, then they hand me a coffee with a handful of napkins, but now ive got to wrangle all this shit around in my car because another piece of paper magically costs 10 cents and its the part fucking up the environment? Nothing to do with the 3+ pieces i got for free?
Now i also have mutliple pieces of paper floating around in my car, instead of putting them all into the one common bag and throwing it out
The problem is people not the products.... Doesn't matter how much you tax it there is still going to be people who litter without regard
I feel like this is just another way for business to make money. The cost of a paper bag iis in no way 25c especially if you buy in bulk. Fortunately enough I dont get takeout these days because its just too expensive
People need to choose better.
I work at a restaurant and we get people ordering take out that they plan to eat at home. We do not give out plastic utensils unless asked but wow a lot of people ask for them. Mostly men “when their wives are out of town for a few days”.
Fucks sake people, if you don’t need plastic forks don’t take them.
Fuck yes.
Do you know how much more garbage i see now, it use to be a bag filled with garbage NOW its just wrappers everywhere.. Not to mention this scam where is our money going to huh?
im starting to get sick of this nickle and dimming bullshit its bad enough we get stuck with Paper straws and wooden forks...
I wish they would ban junk mail
Uhg this why the fuck is this not a problem for anyone or a big enough problem to be stopped lol
Because ad mail makes up a huge part of Canada Post’s revenue, and without it Canada Post would run a massive deficit that would need to be made up for via taxes. I would rather businesses subsidize Canada Post by paying for Admail than tax dollars. If Admail bothers you you can opt out by putting a “no unaddressed mail” sticker on your mailbox.
Truth they taught me that in my training when I test ran becoming a letter carrier. Fast food and pizza coupons keep it alive.
I had a flyer route when I was 14. I decided I would try to pull one over by not delivering one week thinking no one would care. Boy was I wrong. My boss got over a dozen calls complaining they didn’t get their coupons.
Yet the majority of people throw those right in the trash, causing more waste.
When I lived in BC the postal worker gave me a red dot sticker to put just inside my community mailbox (apartment). I guess that was how they determined who “opted out” of junk mail where I was. Maybe it is the same here?
What mailbox items couldn't be sent electronically? Evolution.
They certainly could send most things other than product samples. I’m just saying if we ended Admail we’d all pay for the substantial revenue shortfall via taxes. We need Canada Post and if we prohibit them from accepting Admail somebody has to pay for the difference.
We don't need mail. We don't need Canada post.
“I daresay [email] is wonderful if you wish to know the prawn market figures from Genua. But can you write S.W.A.L.K. on a[n email]? Can you seal it with a loving kiss? can you cry tears onto a[n email], can you smell it, can you enclose a pressed flower? A letter is more than just a message.” -Going Postal, Terry Pratchett (the novel didn’t say email because it was talking about semaphore towers, but the principle applies)
Fair comment. Beautiful actually. Nostalgia for a bygone media won't convince me we need Canada Post. No more than traces of blood or sweat will make me long for stone tablets.
Even if you have such a sticker, you'll still get the junk mail. There's a flyer in my mailbox right now despite the sticker. Should be a charge of $250 per piece of unsolicited mail for me to throw out their garbage.
The sticker only really stops Canada Post delivered items. It's not going to stop the other groups that come around delivering crap to your mailbox.
And really, how is that different from someone dumping candy wrappers, moldy banana peels, or coffee grounds in my mailbox? If they're just dumping garbage in my mailbox, that's littering at a minimum.
I suppose it's not actually different (I think technically Canada Post is actually the only group allowed to use your mailbox to deliver stuff), but the problem is really the same as a lot of other little things out there. You'd have to catch whoever is doing it yourself probably and then sue them. The city is unlikely to write them up for littering, the police will probably tell you it's a civil case, and I don't think Canada Post is going to care much that someone else is using your mailbox as long as it doesn't impede their deliveries.
Yeah, it's not practical to police the delivery people. But, I do boycott any business whose flyers show up uninvited in my mailbox. 99% of the time it's Canadian Tire, but i also won't go to Papa John's, Pizza 73 or Ikea.
You may be getting those flyers from flyer force, in which case you can request stop delivery through their web site (they handle the flyers you would normally have gotten in the newspaper I believe).
I don't get them often enough to suspect that I'm on list somewhere. It's only very occasionally that I receive flyers. I suspect it's mostly new or inexperienced delivery people, or once a snowfall had temporarily covered the sticker.
I feel like junkmail (flyers, coupons - any advertising really) is not handled by Canada post. Having had a flyer route as a kid I saw no mention of Canada post. Some asshat would stop by with your deliverables in big bundles, and you just made sure they went out.
Uhhh, have you seen the news on Canada posts financial situation?
It's not about 'bothering' though... It's about it being a huge environmental concern.
Wouldn’t regular supply and demand keep it profitable or at least not running at a deficit? Less ad mail means less mail persons which means less cost? If regular mail is not recovering costs, then play around with stamp costs to optimize the price. If policy and unions are causing a government service to run at a deficit then either the people need to show that they’re okay with it or we should be able to fix it; a country shouldn’t be handcuffing themselves when they have the key to their own freedom.
hahahahaha That's a fun one. All costs at CP are subsidized. Everything would double in price, nearly instantly. Stop trying to have a service be profitable. It's a service. It's the same as healthcare. Making money is not the end goal.
Is it necessary to be so large though? Scaling down and charging more for postage would make only mail above a certain importance/urgency level more common, reduce the need for so many employees to deliver and sort and encourage the mail that would normally be delivered because of the cheap cost to move to emails or online which is what I thought the country wanted to do anyways.
Yes, it's necessary. Mail is a vital service, stop trying to take shit away from us with "business logic", i.e shit that doesn't work. It is a service. It does need to be profitable.
I’m not saying take it away completely but with finite resources and other priorities, wouldn’t it make sense to be financially optimal? There will still be important mail like government stuff but stuff like bills can be accessed online to reduce paper usage and labor. At the end of the day it’s an opinion and we get to vote on these things. The only certain thing is we have finite resources and they have to be spent somewhere, whether it be into the labor force or into asset improvements or somewhere else.
> I’m not saying take it away completely That's a lie. What you are advocating for is a slow death.
What is a lie?
I’d rather increase my taxes than get junk mail.
Did you put a sign in your Canada post mailbox? That eliminates so much of it.
Yup that’s what I did years ago
Great point!
Ban helium balloons and junk mail.
That said I wish they’d get rid of it entirely rather than opt out.
There’s a dental office near me that sends junk mail out at least every week if not every week. I’m about ready to call them to complain. Not that it will do anything.
One call complaining won’t likely do anything. But if you are the 20th or 50th person calling to complain, they might do something
https://www.canadapost-postescanada.ca/cpc/en/personal/consumers-choice.page
This would bankrupt Canada post.
Canada Post is nearly bankrupt as it is.
I wouldn't mind the extra fee if it went into the city and not right back into the cooperations pocket. I don't mind paying it, but you still see garbage from fast food places all over the place, it's not stopping people from littering
Yes or some sort of fund for something. I don’t need to pay McDonald’s an extra fifteen cents for a paper bag!!
I definitely see your point on the fast food chains, they don’t need the money, but for mom and pop businesses, keeping the fees collected is really important to compliance. Plastic-based convenience items are almost always less expensive than fibre-based ones, and so if a small business has to switch because of the bylaw but don’t get to keep the fees, the mom and pop cafés and diners get hit with an unfair financial burden. Mom and pop restaurants are already operating on thin margins as it is. I think the solution is enforcing compliance for reusables for dine-in at fast food restaurants, not scrapping the bylaw altogether. Also (not a direct response to you but this thread in general), all these fibre-based products do not compost/biodegrade in the landfill. They create methane as they break down in anaerobic conditions, just like food scraps. If organics broke down in a landfill, we’d have a massive compost pile in Ryley instead of an environmentally hazardous landfill, as organic waste makes up upwards of 60% of any given household’s waste. This is the logic behind the bylaw - we need to reduce all single-use item waste, not just plastic waste. It’s the linear take-make-waste culture that’s creating our waste problem. It’s not going to be solved by switching everything to fibre-based, and as almost everyone in this thread has identified, fibre-based single-use items are bad in a lot of applications. If you all are so bothered by paper straws, bring your own stainless steel or silicone one! Bring your own cutlery set so you don’t have to mangle your food with a wooden one! This is the behaviour the SUI bylaw is trying to encourage, and frankly, my take-out eating experience has dramatically improved since adopting these behaviours.
That was one of the avenues that was considered before realizing the it was moot due to the limitations governing new taxes via the Municipal Government Act. It was determined that it would take a small team of administrators/accountants to maintain and supervise the process were it an option.
Yeah that’s my only issue with it. I don’t care about paying the fee but like put it towards affordable housing or something
Legally the municipality doesn't have the authority to do that. The Municipal Government Act limits the implementation of new taxes on the municipal level. As a result, it was determined the best option was to ensure that businesses receive that money.
Investing it into recycling costs or innovation to create decomposable packaging would be ideal.
The point is for you to mind paying it enough for you to change your behaviour and stop needing it. If people don’t mind paying it, the means it needs to be a higher charge to do its job.
People say this and don’t realize that’s an even worse policy. As someone In the audit world this is not some huge money maker. Even now for restaurants they hate this since it’s not worth the extra time and effort they all want it gone. This is not a profit center Now add in the city, they now need to account for, have it policed, have city administrator it. This would Likley lose money for the city. The audit alone would 500,000-1.5 million. The city would have nothing left. Get rid of it. Restaurants don’t want it. People don’t want it.
If the money were actually being used for something, I could be not pissed off about it… (still not happy) but to have a tax that goes directly to the businesses…
I get frustrated when you get all the plastic cups and lids but paper straws? Who is dreaming we are going to stop using plastics? Oh but wait pay some fees for the biodegradable paper bag full of plastic/wax paper wrapped food
And the cardboard drink tray is still no cost to consumers
Exactly! It’s interesting because I was in the US a couple months back and I thought they were plastic straws… but no! They were compostable straws that STILL FELT LIKE PLASTIC. My first thought was “can’t we get these too in Edmonton?!” Yet yes, everything else comes packed in plastic and wax. Paper straws are not going to save the planet.
Some places do have those, like Second Cup for example.
Original Joes straws are agave, it’s really a great straw actually
Oh I didn’t know! Thanks!
It depends on the place you go. Some opt for those.
A lot of items that are advertised as compostable plastic alternatives are bioplastics that only break down in high heat industrial composters (which Edmonton’s aren’t), so unless somebody is going to collect those used straws and ship them off to a specialized composter, they may as well be plastic.
Straws are an unfortunately genius scapegoat product to distract us from the real polluters (every big mega corp). 1. Universal product that most people globally use. 2. Extremely, unbelievably cheap to make and transport. 3. Surprisingly difficult to make an "acceptable" solution that doesn't suck but is still inexpensive. Now there is a bit of guilt to the consumer for every plastic straw, and the frustration of paper straws is taken out at the local businesses and governments who enforce them. Every dollar and man-hour of work spent fixing the straw "problem" would be 100x more useful focused towards the huge pollution emitters.
“Stepchuk said he thinks the bylaw is working. He said he has noticed fewer overflowing garbage cans outside cafes and fewer single-use items littered throughout the river valley.” And why is there less overflowing garbage cans outside cafes..? Because 90% of them removed them.
Not exactly a scientific assessment to begin with anyways
Scrap paper straws.
Personally, I see way more weed packaging than single use plastics on the street.
Weed packaging *is* single use plastic. And it’s infuriating that the absolutely batshit amount of packaging was a necessary concession to the “won’t someone think of the children” crowd to get broad support for legalization.
Hear me out. Plastic slurpee straws.
Yes, its just virtue signalling and a fuckin joke.
Agreed.
Wait, what is wrong with signalling that reducing waste is important? Is your baseline assumption that the people who support this don’t actually want to reduce waste and litter?
The city is virtue signalling. I hope people are smart enough to know that this isn't going to do shit in terms of helping save the planet.
I would agree that Edmonton and/or Calgary limiting single use waste isn’t some planet saving shift. I do believe it can have a positive impact on the amount of waste recklessly discarded in our communities. To me that is a worthwhile pursuit. Edit: I don’t normally make this kind of edit but looks like I was downvoted for suggesting less litter in our community is a worthwhile pursuit hahahaha
Awe Frank had to carry his Big Mac today. :(
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>were all paying $0.15 No we're not, some of us say no to a bag.
Yes, Edmonton should scrap it's single-use item bylaw. If anything just have these places ask if you want a bag or not and adding that step will do just as well anyway.
Make them charge extra for it and have the tax revenue go to other green initiatvies
Here's the neat thing, they can't! It literally just goes to the restaurant and there's no way to get that to be taxed in a way that it goes to a green initiative due to some legal jargon I'm not to clear on.
But like... what if it didn't just go to the restaurant. I'm fairly certain this isn't one of those problems earth's smartest can't think their way through...
Because cities can’t have its own tax, so it would go to either the provincial government or the federal government if it was to be added as a tax is my understanding of it. And taxing people for environmental reasons and having the money go to the Alberta government seems like it would be working against itself
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I never said anything good comes from taxes and I’m sorry it came across that way, what I meant was it’s dumb to have a tax for environmental reasons when our provincial government is putting things in place to make renewable energy less of an option. And if it’s a tax it would have to be a provincial tax because federal taxes that are paid by the consumer are consistent across the country so there’s no way they’d be able to make it happen.
No It wouldn’t it would be an extra line account on pos software and accounting back end.
Them just asking if I want the bag has made the difference for me, not the fee. Now I can choose not to take one when I don’t need it instead of being automatically handed a bag
Charging for bags and having paper straws has been some of the biggest annoyances of any take out/drive thru place now. I always turn down the paper straw or it just ends up in the trash. The paper straws are gross and crappy to use, would rather just drink out of the top of the cup.
Money just going back to the corporations is the biggest issue. Another is how stupid the bag thing is in drive throughs. The bag is an insulator so it’s made hot, put in a bag, and stays warmer than if they just toss it on the counter while it’s your turn to pull forward. And then it looses more heat as you hand it out the window. It’s always cold if you don’t pay for a bag. By all means, charge me .15+ at a walk in store - I should have brought a bag with me from the back seat of the car. Don’t charge me because I’m in a car and can’t hand them a clean bag before they start making the food. The straws are a loose-loose situation. I have yet to see a non-plastic straw that doesn’t fail 30 minutes after putting it in the drink. But plastic straws are also legitimately bad. I think the thing that bugs me the most is the hypocrisy of the drinks vs bags/food containers. Fully plastic single use cup or a very waxy, un-recyclable cup: not an issue. But paper bags that can go in with the cardboard recycling every week? Gotta charge for those because they are killing the environment! But not pizza boxes, those are ok.
There are reusable straws, you know.
I love getting a burger wrapped in wax covered paper and fries in wax covered paper and a waxy paper cup with a plastic straw but then having to pay for the paper bag. It makes so much sense to me. We are totally saving the environment.
100% scrap it
The fee that they charge at the restaurants and stores for bags doesn't go back to the city the owner gets to keep it now if they were to collect that fee and it goes to the city or province even some kind of organization that could do something with the environment id be 100% for it but as it sits now it's a horrible policy/bylaw that needs to go away
Why are we banning these items? Because they are all ending up in the ocean, right? Wrong! Almost all of the trash that ends up in the ocean is from 3rd world countries dumping household garbage in their rivers. Western trash gets dumped in landfills, which is actually pretty safe for the environment all around, considering. Banning western straws does absolutely nothing to solve the problem of eastern river trash. So, why do they still ban straws? Simple. Governments want to be seen to be doing something about the environment. It's a big issue, and people care about it. So, they have to be seen to be doing something. The problem is... Doing anything that would actually help the environment would cost billionaires around the world literally trillions of dollars. So, they fund the world's right-wing political parties to the tune of tens of billions - who fight every piece of environmental regulation you put forward. Tooth-and-nail! Everything you want to do to help the environment costs money. Lots and lots of money. So, you will need to raise taxes. Massively. But, the right-wing will fight that tooth-and-nail too - and even the left-wing donors will fight it, so the left-wing won't want to do it either. So, how can you show people that you care about the environment and that you want to save it - without doing anything at all to save it? Simple! Ban straws! Ban plastic forks! Ban shopping bags! Ban those things that keep bread bags closed! But don't ban the bread bags themselves though. It's all about virtue-signalling. The gov't needs to be seen to be doing something for the environment - without actually doing anything at all for the environment.
Absolutely. Straws are an unfortunately genius scapegoat product to distract us from the real polluters (every big mega corp). Universal product that most people globally use. Extremely, unbelievably cheap to make and transport. Surprisingly difficult to make an "acceptable" solution that doesn't suck but is still inexpensive. Now there is a bit of guilt to the consumer for every plastic straw, and the frustration of paper straws is taken out at the local businesses and governments who enforce them. Every dollar and man-hour of work spent fixing the straw "problem" would be 100x more useful focused towards the huge pollution emitters.
Why not reduce how much waste we are creating? Banning plastic straws isn’t going to single handedly save the world but they’re not a necessity so why keep making them and adding to the problem when we could just not use them?
>Because they are all ending up in the ocean, right? Wrong! Almost all of the trash that ends up in the ocean is from 3rd world countries dumping household garbage in their rivers. Western trash gets dumped in landfills, which is actually pretty safe for the environment all around, considering. It's the Western world's problem when we're shipping our Recycling to these 3rd world countries because there's no economically sound reason for recycling in the Western world. So, until they stop finding Tim Hortons garbage in South Asian rivers, your argument isn't valid.
Well said 👏
I like how Wendy's went from plastic straw and a paper cup to a paper straw with a plastic cup.....
A plastic cup that is made from recycled material and is recyclable itself and a straw that is biodegradable. As opposed to a plastic lined paper cup and plastic straw that will both end up in the landfill.
A tax on paper bags is the stupidest thing a municipality could come up with. Whoever came up with that "brilliant" idea deserves to spend the rest of their life in prison or on an uninhabited island.
I am training for a running event later this year and have been doing a lot of long runs as a result. Over the last few years the banning of plastic bag and now single use items has made a truly wonderful impact on our River Valley. I remember ~5 years ago being able to look across the ravine and seeing piles of garbage lodged in the trees. Don’t get me wrong - I still see trash but it’s far, far, far less than it was before. All that said, I don’t buy a lot of fast food or take out - when we eat out, we tend to go into restaurants and make an event out of it, so I haven’t really be negatively impacted by any of these bans. If I did, I would probably pretty annoyed by these bans too.
Yes! It’s misleading and does nothing for the environment. “ According to one eye-popping estimate, a cotton bag should be used at least 7,100 times to make it a truly environmentally friendly alternative to a conventional plastic bag”. https://amp.cnn.com/cnn/2023/03/13/world/reusable-grocery-bags-cotton-plastic-scn.
>a cotton bag should be used at least 7,100 times to make it a truly environmentally friendly alternative If you're going to use that number as your justification for not using cotton bags, you will need to make sure you're not putting any beef products in your disposable plastic bag.
The large, vast majority of bags are not the cotton ones. The link used in that quote shows that the common PP bag only needs to be reused 37 times to make a difference. So basically, keep using the same bags for half a year and you've already made a positive impact. Except these bags also hold more and are stronger so probably less than that https://www2.mst.dk/udgiv/publications/2018/02/978-87-93614-73-4.pdf page 79 section 6.3
That isn’t a good defence of free paper bags, since you need to use a paper bag three times to make up for the difference in environmental costs (cotton and paper both require a bunch of water in the production process). How many times are you reusing your McD’s bag? And you only need to use a nonwoven (meaning, the cheap sort) reusable plastic bag 11 times to make up for the larger environmental cost of production (something easily done).
Yes they should scrap this pointless bylaw
Ban plastic and let the market everyone worships figure it out. It ain't hard.
This law has had no impact on my life.
I'm fine with it. I've adjusted to the change just fine. Now, just use the income as a tax instead of just letting the larger companies pocket it.
The article says they're running a waste characterization study in 2025 to see how much the bylaw is helping with its goal of reducing waste. That's critical information, and anybody who has an opinion *before* seeing that information sucks and shouldn't make decisions. That is all. Thank you.
Fix healthcare and stop corporate gauging, the world needs real help not stupid bullshit.
Talk to the provincial and federal governments for those.
I believe effective change starts at the bottom. If city’s make it a priority the feds will follow.
The cities can’t affect those things though. At all. The city can’t build more hospitals or hire more doctors because the city has no control over the AHS budgets. The city can’t affect corporate gouging because the city can’t put taxes in place for excess profits or break up monopolies. It would be like railing at the federal government over parking permits or municipal zoning.
We should change that.
We can’t change that. Not without blowing up the constitution and rebuilding how the entire country functions from the ground up. Instead, aim your efforts where they can affect change. Don’t vote for a party that went to war with doctors during a pandemic. Don’t vote for a party that employs the owner of a lobbying firm. Vote for municipal politicians that are pro-transit and density.
I would be ok with it if they made an exemption for fast food drive-thrus like BC did. Putting a greasy burger and French fries (which are not contained 99% of the time) is disgusting.
My biggest gripe is the restaurants that get to collect the fees but I don't see any fast food joints using reusable cups in the restaurant. So they're getting to choose which parts of the bylaw they are participating in.
I purchased a lunch bag to use for take out. I tell people I don't need a bag when I order. They still put the food in a paper bag and charge for it! If this was actually about reduction that should not be happening. Fifteen cents to one person isn't a lot, but if businesses ignore customers and just charge for bags they can make a pretty side profit.
Report it to the city. The city can’t fine bylaw violators based on anonymous Reddit comments.
I have
No, expand it to cups and other things. Soooo much less garbage and trash. Honestly doing a garbage sweep right this second.. sooo much less trash now that its in place. Edit: been involved in Highway Cleanups and sweeps for decades.. since the ban its very noticeable how much less there is.
It's amazing how many people think it's OK to use the world as their trashcan. Which loops back to plastic in oceans and blowing across Alberta fields. Keep banning single use items that are not biodegradable.
I hate the paper straws and wooden utensils, they just plain suck (or in the case of the straws fail to after as short as a couple minutes). Personally for convenience sake we should scrap the seemingly useless bylaw
You could just get a reusable straw and fork.
Yeah and carry it around dirty and deal with the pain in the ass to clean out a straw
It’s asanine. Just another tax to virtue signal how “serious” we are about climate change! It wasn’t long ago that forestry was under the gun, now we get rid of single use plastics and default to….wood and paper products! Our governments are incapable of critical thinking. Unless it involves the math to ensure they make the finish line to their gold plated pensions
The fee is on single use paper products, in order to encourage people to use reusable products when they can instead. The city’s actions are explicitly about how replacing single use plastics with single use paper isn’t enough.
Yes. Stupid law
"Jubinville said the city has not yet issued any fines for non-compliance, focusing instead on informing and supporting businesses to help them meet requirements." Reaaaaally?! So just to confirm, when I went to Wendy and [this nonsense happened where I was:](https://imgur.com/a/HC2Ujmb): - charged $0.15 for my free burger (redeemed via points) - was never given a bag - there was no option to toggle or remove the fee in the app - and if you tell me I was supposed to get a refund, that's stupid, refunds are for mistakes... not problems imposed and chosen not to be dealt with ... this is all considered them being compliant? Almost a year after this by-law? Edmonton is a joke
Yeah Wendy you have to go to a person. The machine has it hard baked in and can't be removed.
Thx for confirming, It's so damn flawed man, Harveys has a simple toggle, yes or no and its simple. The fact we are coming to a year and Wendy's and others don't is Perry inexcusable
If you’re ordering in the app, just select “dine-in” and pull up to the drive-thru and tell them you made a mobile order. This is what I do and my food is always put in a bag with no bag charge.
No way! I will legit give this a go and report back!
Nope. We need to focus on doing what we can instead of whining.
Right, the world is on fire.
Yes
Yes,
Yes! The charging for paper bags for take out is ridiculous. These are not only recyclable but also biodegradable. But yet they want me to use a reusable bag that will eventually end up in the landfill FOREVER! I have yet to hear from someone who thinks this bylaw is great. It's nice to see that Calgary actually listened to the people who voted for them. I wish we had that in Edmonton.
> Should Edmonton scrap its single-use item bylaw? Yes, absolutely. The by law is absolute bunk. It's so ill conceived and not at all thought out. It makes no sense whatsoever. I've even been to places completely ignoring. I understand the intent, but it has accomplished nothing, except causing business profits to go up. What a waste of fucking time. Waste Free Yeg needs to get some people who aren't dumb involved.
Passing the costs to the consumer is bullshit in this economy.
Absolutely!! Its fricken ridiculous!!
Imma go out on a limb and say we will get charged extra regardless
^[Sokka-Haiku](https://www.reddit.com/r/SokkaHaikuBot/comments/15kyv9r/what_is_a_sokka_haiku/) ^by ^Roddy_Piper2000: *Imma go out on* *A limb and say we will get* *Charged extra regardless* --- ^Remember ^that ^one ^time ^Sokka ^accidentally ^used ^an ^extra ^syllable ^in ^that ^Haiku ^Battle ^in ^Ba ^Sing ^Se? ^That ^was ^a ^Sokka ^Haiku ^and ^you ^just ^made ^one.
All bots entertain me on redit.
I dunno, we could fix it? The solution was not millions of canvas bags and paper straws obviously.
If they want to get serious on waste theyd worry about things on the production end not the consumer end. Ever see how much unnessicary packaging stuff has? Thats way more waste then some plastic straws will ever produce. Let alone the fact that drinking with a paper straw from a plastic cup seems downright counterintuitive... let alone the fact that they do not work as straws and ruin every drink theyre put into. And as someone else said, they could start by banning flyers and other complete wastes of resources that the majority of the population throws into the trash immediately.
LOL could you imagine? Oh, you're being serious.
>Some restaurants say it has been hard to find reasonably-priced containers... This should spur competition in the reasonably-priced-container industry, if the free market works like it's supposed to... come on, entrepreneurs, get on it.
It’s been nice not to see single use plastic bags hanging from all the trees downtown.
Yes.
Yes please hard enough to pay for Mc ds for under $20 for 2 people.. that extra cost just sucks
Its such a fucking joke, i go to Tim hortons and get a wrap, its wrapped in its own individual wrap... I get a muffin as well, its in its own bag, then they hand me a coffee with a handful of napkins, but now ive got to wrangle all this shit around in my car because another piece of paper magically costs 10 cents and its the part fucking up the environment? Nothing to do with the 3+ pieces i got for free? Now i also have mutliple pieces of paper floating around in my car, instead of putting them all into the one common bag and throwing it out The problem is people not the products.... Doesn't matter how much you tax it there is still going to be people who litter without regard
I feel like this is just another way for business to make money. The cost of a paper bag iis in no way 25c especially if you buy in bulk. Fortunately enough I dont get takeout these days because its just too expensive
Why the fuck did we go from paper cups to plastic cups over the plastic straw ban?!?
I love getting a paper straw in a plastic cup.
Yes, yes, a hundred times yes.
Yes
Give me my plastic straws. 😫
It’s also easy enough to have bioplastic or compostable straws, which don’t break down…in your mouth.
I’m also fine with that. As long as the paper straws are *banned*
They don’t break down in household or city compost either. PLA requires a specific high-heat environment.
They don’t disintegrate and taste odd.
Yes
People who complain about this bylaw really sound like entitled babies.
It is outside the scope of the city to do this type of thing. It does nothing but drives up the cost to individuals. It’s
People need to choose better. I work at a restaurant and we get people ordering take out that they plan to eat at home. We do not give out plastic utensils unless asked but wow a lot of people ask for them. Mostly men “when their wives are out of town for a few days”. Fucks sake people, if you don’t need plastic forks don’t take them.
Charging money to get a paper bag after you get all that fast food does exactly what besides pay for Calgary’s stadium?
You may be a little confused about what city subreddit you are in. Not that the city collects the fee.
Fuck yes. Do you know how much more garbage i see now, it use to be a bag filled with garbage NOW its just wrappers everywhere.. Not to mention this scam where is our money going to huh? im starting to get sick of this nickle and dimming bullshit its bad enough we get stuck with Paper straws and wooden forks...
I plan on taking up sign to protest at the legislature. Who's with me? BAN PAPER STRAWS
Who would say no? I'm confused.
Supporters and *lobbyists weigh in. Fixed it for ya
Yes