Friday September 19, 2025 | VICTORIA, BC [Posted at 9:15 am | Updated 12:46 pm]
by Mary P Brooke | Island Social Trends
Neighbourhood Mail wrapped in plastic will no longer be accepted starting 2026, Canada Post has told Island Social Trends.
“While Canada Posts does not bundle or wrap neighbourhood mail in plastic for delivery, we did have a customer in the region provide us with their mail pieces already in plastic to be delivered that way,” said Canada Post this week, referring to the Greater Victoria region but adding that it’s happening in other parts of Canada as well.
“There are other companies who deliver flyers and they may place them in plastic. The decision to use plastic wrap or bags rests on the sender or marketing group,” says a Canada Post spokesperson.
Plastic recycling:
In reality, many people do not read printed flyers and simply toss them into recycling.
With some flyers bulk-wrapped in plastic it’s unknown whether people take off the plastic before recycling.
Locally, the paper recycling program of the Capital Regional District (CRD) has “low contamination”. CRD says that “recent reports do not identify flexible plastics as a major contamination issue”.
Asking the union to stop the flyer ban:
Small businesses, charities and other smaller enterprises in many cases still depend on printed flyers delivered to ‘every household’ (on designated mail delivery routes) for generating revenue.
Canada Post now feels that with a ‘planned return to the table’ (sometime next week) that CUPW should amend its strike action and deliver the unaddressed flyers (Neighbourhood Mail) that are currently trapped in their network.
It was last week that CUPW took a stand to not deliver flyers as part of their job action. They’re essentially asking for CUPW to ‘play nice’, which seems somewhat naive despite how sensible it would be to not have a significant revenue stream blocked.
In their September 18 statement, CUPW says: “As of now, our national unaddressed flyer ban remains in effect” despite that the action hampers corporate revenues such making it even harder for the employer to pay labour.
===== RELATED:
- Canada Post preparing new global offers for CUPW (September 19, 2025)
- No flyer delivery as Canada Post workers continue job action (September 12, 2025)
- Carney announces five major projects to fast-track Canada’s economic transition (September 11, 2025)
- Canada Post advises business customers about new US prepaid export duties (August 24, 2025)
- What can possibly break the Canada Post bargaining stalemate? (August 6, 2025)
- Canada Post workers still on the job with overtime ban (May 23, 2025)
- Post-pandemic social anxiety in dogs leads to incidents for Canada Post delivery agents (July 17, 2021)
- Canada Post employees require safety around dogs (July 12, 2021)
- NEWS SECTIONS: CANADA POST | JOBS & EMPLOYMENT