Paper bags will return to LCBO stores in ‘the coming weeks’

Paper bags will return to LCBO stores in “the coming weeks,” just over a year after it first phased them out to reduce its carbon footprint, the government-run retailer says.

The LCBO stopped offering paper bags to customers in September 2023, a move it said would help its environmental ambitions and remove 135 million bags from annual circulation. Months later, however, Ontario Premier Doug Ford said he thought the plan was impractical and costly. He ordered the alcohol store to cancel it.

“At a time when many Ontario families are already struggling to make ends meet, every additional expense counts,” Ford said in a letter dated April 7, 2024, to LCBO’s president and CEO. “That includes charging customers for reusable bags instead of the free paper bags that the LCBO previously offered.”

The LCBO responded by starting a search for a new bag supplier, having already cancelled its contract with the previous maker. The LCBO told Global News Rosenbloom Groupe Inc., a Quebec-based company, received the contract.

“To ensure a fair and transparent process when selecting a paper bag vendor, LCBO published a public Request for Quote and over the last several months, was carefully assessing applications and working to complete the procurement process,” a spokesperson said.

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The contract is worth roughly $10 million, according to the government.

“We are working with our vendor to finalize production details and timelines and expect single-use paper bags will be available in-store in the coming weeks,” the LCBO continued. “We will share more information with customers as able.”

3:21 How a paper bag contract at the LCBO sent the Ford government scrambling 

The LCBO had previously calculated that removing its paper bags saved the equivalent of 188,000 trees each year and diverted 2,665 tonnes of waste from landfills.

When the government ordered the return of paper bags to LCBO stores, opposition politicians called it a distraction.

Ford said he didn’t want people to have to worry about extra costs, or be “stuck openly carrying alcohol in public when leaving an LCBO store.”

“People rightly expect their government — and, by extension, crown corporations such as the LCBO — to be mindful of these costs and refrain from imposing additional and unnecessary burdens on them,” Ford wrote in April.