Reusable bags were supposed to help save the environment, but only if shoppers bring them

Closets and car trunks around Ottawa are overflowing with reusable shopping bags as some shoppers admit they can't remember to bring them back to the store and keep having to buy more.

It's a habit one environmental expert warns is unsustainable.

"We're treating them like single-use items, so it's almost replacing one single-use item like the plastic bagwith a reusable bag," said Tony Walker, a professor at Dalhousie University who specializes in plastics and plastic pollution.

Ottawa shopper Chelsea Currie-Reid said she has over 50 reusable bags in her garage.

"I have so many because I buy them all the time and then I forget them," she said.

CBC caught up with Currie-Reid in the self-checkout line at the Metro grocery store on Carling Avenue where she was buying two additional bags because, once again, she arrived empty-handed.

"Even when I have them in my car,like I have a bag in my car all the timeand then I forget to bring them in," she said.

Regulations remain in force

It's been just over a year since Canada banned the manufacture or importof checkout bags and other single-use plastic items.

A ban on their sale was implemented last month, but a Federal Court ruling in November deemed the decision to list plastic items as toxic as "unreasonable and unconstitutional."

The government is appealing the decision.

• Ottawa to appeal court ruling that overturned order listing plastics as toxic substance

The move to list plastic items as toxic was a key step that allowed Ottawa to proceed with a ban on some single-use plastic items in the first place.

Customers not catching on

Regardless of the regulations, major retailers have already made the switch. It's taking customers time to catch on.

Andrea Ashbaugh, a clinical psychologist and associate professor at the University of Ottawa, said research on habit development shows it can take anywhere from 21 to 60 days for an average person to adjust.

"Change is a really difficult thing," Ashbaugh said, adding that it also depends on how often you're doing the activity you're trying to change.

"The challenges are no different than, say, deciding to exercise or deciding to stick to a budget to some extent, so part of it is just remembering to do it," she added.

Ashbaugh suggested people adopt strategies to remember such as leaving the bags in your caror packing one in your purse or backpack.

Melissa Kouassiinitially said she had about 20 reusable bags at her home, but later in the conversation admitted the number was likely closer to 50.

"I went to my appointment, I didn't know that I would come to do the shopping so I have to get another one," Kouassi said.

Business as usual 'unsustainable'

Walker saidhe's not seeing the critical change in behaviour required to make reusable bags better for the environment than their predecessor, the single-use plastic bag.

"If nearly 40 million Canadians can do better and only have, you know, maybe 80 million reusable bags, then it kind of interrupts and intervenes that step where we continue to keep acquiring new bags week in, week out, which is clearly unsustainable," Walker said.

Similar to plastic bags, Walker saidnon-woven polypropylene bags, like the ones sold at Walmart for example, will never break down into nutrients.

"They continue to break down into smaller plastic particles, microplastics or nanoplastics, so they never really go away," he said.