Montreal Publisacs will soon be replaced by a booklet distributed by Canada Post

The distribution of the Publisac is about to end at the doors of Montreal residents' homes.

TC Transcontinental, which has been distributing the plastic bag containing merchant flyers for many years, says it has developed a replacement product that will reduce the amount of paper in the flyers by nearly 60 per cent, while eliminating the plastic entirely.

It is a slim, quarter-folded booklet that combines the flyers of several retailers into a single printed product with a limited number of pages. It will be complemented by a digital platform with a wider range of promotional offers for consumers.

The new print product will be distributed in the coming days by Canada Post.

In a news release issued last month, Patrick Brayley, TC Transcontinental's senior vice president of pre-media, distribution and point-of-sale marketing, said that a majority of consumers continue to rely on paper flyers to plan their shopping trips.

TC Transcontinental says that printed flyers are recyclable and that no trees are cut down to make newsprint, as it is made from sawmill residues. The recovery rate for newsprint is 86 per cent, and the recovered paper is then recycled into new products, the Montreal-based multinational company said.

Last year, Montreal Mayor Valérie Plante said that about 800,000 flyers and other unsolicited advertisements were found in the city each week, representing more than 41 million flyers a year that end up in recycling depots and landfills.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published in French on May 10, 2023.