CELPIP Listening Part 6 Practice Test: Charging for Paper Bags

NARRATOR: At checkouts across the country, shoppers who forget their reusable bags are increasingly confronted with a small but irritating question: are they willing to pay for a paper one? Since the federal restrictions on most single-use plastic bags, many grocery chains have begun charging anywhere from ten to twenty-five cents per paper bag, and several municipalities are now considering making such fees mandatory. The proposal sounds modest, yet it has provoked a surprisingly heated debate, one that pits environmental advocates against those who worry about what small charges add up to for families on tight budgets.

NARRATOR: Supporters, among them Halifax environmental consultant Rebecca Lam, argue that paper is hardly the innocent alternative many consumers assume. Manufacturing a paper bag, she points out, consumes considerably more water and energy than producing a plastic one, and because paper is heavier, transporting it generates additional emissions. In Lam's view, the objective was never to substitute one disposable product for another, but to change habits altogether, and a fee, she contends, is the gentlest available nudge. She cites a Quebec town where the use of reusable bags doubled within six months of a fifteen-cent charge being introduced, without any accompanying advertising. Lam also dismisses the accusation that retailers are profiteering, noting that several chains already donate the proceeds to local environmental organizations.

NARRATOR: Critics remain unconvinced. Calgary city councillor Derek Hollis, who has twice voted against a mandatory fee, describes it as a regressive tax disguised as environmental policy. Affluent shoppers, he observes, barely notice an extra quarter. A pensioner who shops on foot or by bus, by contrast, tends to buy a few items at a time, often without planning the trip, and so pays the charge again and again. Hollis is equally sceptical of those voluntary donations, pointing out that nothing obliges stores to disclose how much they actually collect. Rather than penalizing customers at the till, he would have cities hand out free reusable bags through libraries and community centres, a measure he believes would achieve the same goal without the resentment.

NARRATOR: Both sides, admittedly, share the same goal; the question is whether shoppers change their ways more readily when they are charged or when they are equipped. Given how quickly most Canadians adapted to losing plastic bags, one suspects the fee will provoke more grumbling than genuine hardship, though Hollis's concerns about who shoulders the burden deserve a fuller hearing than they have so far received.