Can cloth bags be recycled? Experts say it's complicated

As the federal government clamps down on single-use plastic items, several grocery and retail giants have now permanently switched to reusable cloth bags.

Walmart Canada most recently announced in April that its stores will no longer offer single-use plastic bags for in-store purchases, online grocery pickups and deliveries, and now offers its own line of cloth-based bags.

But as companies worldwide head toward reusable products, questions are starting to rise from shoppers about whether the public truly understands how to recycle them.

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Oshawa-based Bill Goodman and his wife, who have been having their groceries delivered online from Walmart Canada since the pandemic hit in 2020, said they wondered what to do with a large number of these new cloth bags they received.

“(Our) groceries arrived in 23 beautiful, sturdy non-plastic bags ... and they pretty much fill up a whole garbage can to throw out. We asked the driver, the store and then head office if we could return those lovely bags to be re-used. No, they can't be, for hygiene reasons, they said,” Goodman told CTVnews.ca in an email.

“So, we asked, do you have any idea if they can be recycled, and if so where? Everyone was very polite, but clearly, no one had any idea.”

According to Goodman, Walmart’s head office wasn’t able to suggest alternatives to their predicament, and options such as delivering their groceries in a cardboard box weren’t being offered.

Annette Synowiec, director of policy, planning and outreach solid waste management services with the City of Toronto, said that the city’s official recommendation would be to donate one’s reusable cloth bags.

“(They) may want to consider donating these items through one of the many Community Environment Days events taking place from April through July across the city,” she said.

The city also offers a list of non-profit organizations and drop boxes that accept clothing and other recyclable items across the Greater Toronto Area.

But ultimately she concludes that if “all opportunities for reuse of a textile item like the reusable cloth bags are exhausted, this item should be placed in the garbage bin.”

Concerns about reusable items ending up in a landfill hit home for Jacquie Hutchings, the president and co-founder of Friendlier, a start-up that offers reusable packaging services to businesses across Ontario.

“I think that our society needs to see a massive change. I think that right now everyone is so accustomed to ... throwing away the packaging, and we need to see immense change in the way that we consume different products,” Hutchings said.

“Of course, there will be a learning curve to it. And there will be people who, you know, accidentally throw it out or maybe intentionally throw it out, because they don't know what to do. But like everything, there will be a turbulent period when that change happens.”

Friendlier was founded in 2019 by Hutchings and business partner Kayli Dale while still finishing up their studies in Chemical Engineering at the University of Waterloo, where they first met.

Their business sells reusable containers to food businesses that they can return to Friendlier, where they are cleaned and sanitized before being sold back to the business.

“Basically we're creating the infrastructure to keep reusable packages in circulation for their primary use. So actually getting them right back to the restaurant instead of … having people accumulate them at home, or, you know, having to recycle them. We actually reuse them over and over again,” Hutchings said.

Hutchings says that while Friendlier doesn’t currently offer a similar service for cloth bags, she recognizes a similar issue with the recycling of the product.

“The problem is that currently, they're not recyclable in any recycling stream,” she said.

“I do think the best answer for that would be to find a local food shelter where they can bring them and have them reuse them or donate them to Goodwill or Value Village or somewhere where they will get reused.”

However, Hutchings says Walmart has taken a step in the right direction and is confident that the fact that customers have started asking about how to reuse non-plastic products is already a good sign.

“So now that we're just forcing people to think about it a little bit differently and put them in a state where they're a little bit uncomfortable because maybe they don't know what to do.

But when we deliver that with the proper education and we continue to drive it forward … I think we can create a more circular future where there's a huge opportunity to keep the product in circulation,” she said.

“So eventually, nothing ends up in the landfill.”