This is not another paper versus plastic bag story (there are enough of those already). Nor is it about favouring reusable bags over single-use ones. It’s a story about facts and misinformation, and it relates specifically to the Ontario provincial government recently ordering its wine and beer monopoly, the Liquor Control Board of Ontario (LCBO), to reinstate paper carryout bags for customers.
There’s a lot of history here. Once upon a time the LCBO provided its customers with paper bags. Then it dumped them for cheaper plastics. When plastic grew out of favour, the LCBO went back to paper bags. Then in September 2023 paper got turfed for reusables. A few months later in April this year Ontario premier, Doug Ford, claiming consumers couldn’t afford all the reusable bags they were buying, ordered a return to paper bags, adding in October (after an $11-million contract had already been signed with a Quebec-based but US-owned company), that the successful bidder should be an Ontario business.[1]
Throughout this tortuous and chequered political history, the LCBO and others have spun various lines about the pros and cons of paper bags. They either “kill” or “save’’ trees,[2] and either end up in landfill or are widely recyclable (take your pick). So, what are the facts?
- What are paper bags made from?
Paper bags can be made from virgin fibres, recycled fibres, or a blend of the two (so can be anywhere from 100% virgin to 100% recycled). What the bag is being used for often determines which is chosen. The LCBO, for example, in its latest specifications, wants 100% virgin fibres because it considers they have the strength properties to carry between one and four bottles of wine and liquor. The virgin fibres must come from North American forests certified as being sustainably managed.[3]
Does this mean thousands upon thousands of trees (insert your own number) are cut down to provide the LCBO’s virgin fibres? No, it does not. In fact, most virgin fibres used in packaging grades are what are called sawmill residues. They are the sawdust, wood chips and shavings left over after a tree has been sized by a sawmill for lumber (to build houses, hospitals, and schools). The tree is cut for lumber and its leftover by-product repurposed to make bag paper, amongst other things, minimising overall waste and forming part of the paper and forest industries’ circular economy.
Some critics have pointed to the high energy required to make paper bags (relative to plastics). But what they are not saying is that the energy used to make virgin bag paper in Canada is renewable energy (biomass).[4] It’s the same sawmill residues (chips, shavings and sawdust) used to make the bag paper, with any surplus energy diverted to the local power grid, keeping the lights on for nearby communities.
- How many LCBO paper bags are landfilled or recycled?
Short of placing a tracking device on every single LCBO paper bag, it is impossible to answer this question. All types of paper bags (wine and liquor, grocery, pharmacy, and so on) are usually lumped together for research purposes, and often aggregated further into much broader categories of paper such as “boxboard and other packaging” or simply “paper packaging” as a whole.
And while waste composition studies of what’s in people’s trash can be helpful, great care has to be taken to ensure these studies are representative if the results are to be statistically extrapolated to the rest of the province. That’s because our waste varies by season, by income, by degree of urbanisation, by geographic area, and by whether we live in a single-family home or a multi-residential apartment or condo.
The same cautions apply to paper bag recycling estimates. Paper bags are not collected separately from all other materials, so one of the few ways to estimate how many are being sent on for recycling is to break open representative bales of collected paper to see what’s inside them, and extrapolate from that. So, there are all sorts of problems and caveats in coming up with provincial or other estimates specifically for paper bags (and many other materials).
Having said that, most paper bags sent for recycling end up in bales of old corrugated boxes, one of the most sought after of all materials in the Blue Box with historical recovery rates north of 90 per cent.
- Are LCBO paper bags recyclable?
Absolutely! But first you need to understand that there are two parts to a recyclability claim. One is being technically recyclable, and the second relates to “a reasonable proportion” [5] of purchasers having access to recycling systems and facilities. You need both.
- Technically recyclable
Most paper bags, and certainly the ones the LCBO is currently specifying, are technically recyclable. The 100% virgin fibres will be prized by paper makers seeking to strengthen whatever new product they are making.
And let’s correct any misconception that virgin fibres are white and recycled fibres brown. In fact, the natural colour of virgin fibres is brown (although they can be bleached white). Recycled fibres, on the other hand, tend to be greyish (although they can be dyed brown).[6]
It is not the colour of the fibres, then, that determines whether they can be further recycled, it is their length. Paper fibres can be recycled up to seven times, so it’s not as if they are going off to landfill directly after their first use. But they become shorter and weaker after each recycling. So, recycling mills work like a master chef, choosing which fibres to mix and match to provide the required strength properties for their new product. Short fibres mix with longer fibres in an ongoing cycle. Eventually, the older and weaker fibres need to be replaced (just like us!)[7]
- Access to recycling
An impressive 96% of Canadians have access to the recycling of paper bags, according to an independent study commissioned by the Paper & Paperboard Packaging Environmental Council (PPEC).[8] Whether Canadians take advantage of this access is a reflection of the education effort enlisted to persuade them. But it does mean that there is a ready market for bag material to be recycled again and again. Many bags also end up as compost, fertiliser, animal bedding, or are converted to energy in co-generation plants.
For more information on the LCBO issue, check out Rachel Kagan’s comprehensive blog here.[9]
[1] CBC, “Ford tells LCBO to find Ontario paper supplier weeks after $11 M deal inked with Quebec firm,” October 23, 2024, https://cbc.ca/news/toronto/lcbo-paper-bag-supply-contract-ford-letter-1.7360654
[2] John Mullinder, “Killing” and “Saving” Trees, July 10, 2024, https://johnmullinder.ca/killing-and-saving-trees/
[3] Liquor Control Board of Ontario (LCBO), Request for Quotation, Supply and Delivery of Paper Bags for Customer Purchases, April 22, 2024, Specifications 2.1: 100% Virgin. Specification 3.1 Raw Material of Kraft Paper. “All paper used in the production of LCBO bags must be made of paper that is FSC or SFI certified from North American sourced virgin fibre and must be marked as such.” By provincial law, any forest harvested in Canada must be successfully regenerated as forest afterwards.
[4] For example, Canfor Corporation’s Prince George, B.C. mill and Canadian Kraft Paper’s The Pas, Manitoba mill.
[5] Competition Bureau Canada, Environmental Claims: A Guide for Industry and Advertisers, June 2008 (archived). In Canada, 50% is considered a “reasonable proportion.” In the US, it is 60%. https://www.competitionbureau.gc.ca/eic/site/cb-bc.nsf/eng/04607.html
[6] Sophia Harris, CBC, “Walmart, LCBO are the latest retailers to embrace single-use paper bags. Environmentalists are concerned,” October 25, 2024, www.cbc.ca/news/business/paper-bags-ban-walmart-1.7358649
[7] John Mullinder. “Some really deep thoughts on the meaning of life, and paper,” August 9, 2019, https://johnmullinder.ca/some-really-deep-thoughts-on-the-meaning-of-life-and-paper/
[8] CM Consulting, “Access to Residential Recycling of Paper Packaging Materials in Canada,” October 2014, https://ppec-paper.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/ProtectedDocs/AccessPPECOct21members.pdf
[9] Rachel Kagan, “The Recyclability of Paper Bags Should Not Be Controversial,” October 31, 2024, https://ppec-paper.com/the-recyclability-of-paper-bags-should-not-be-controversial/d-not-be-controversial/