Walmart Canada has decided to start charging customers 5 cents per plastic bag at the check out. They say it’s to reduce the amount of bags that end up in a landfill site. I have a different opinion.

Let’s do some very simple arithmetic using some basic assumptions.

Apparently 1.2 million customers go to Walmart’s 397 Canadian every day. If we assume each customer requires on average 2 bags, that’s 2.4 million bags per day. Assuming there is a cost to Walmart of 1 cent per bag, that means they are making 4 cents per bag or $96,000 a day! At 365 days a year that means they are hauling in $35,040,000 a year!! To be fair they say that “some of the money will go to recycling initiatives” so let’s assume that might be 25%. That means their net profit is estimated to be $26,280,000 a year for charging for plastic bags.

Continuing to be fair let’s say that customers buy or bring their own reusable bags and that cuts the numbers down by 50%. That still means that Walmart Canada will pocket approximately $13,000,000 a year because they are being “environmentally responsible”.

I wonder if Walmart and other grocery chains really think we are all that stupid. Probably they are hoping we are. Nice try Walmart.