Starting September 21, 2010, Telus Mobility will start charging it’s customers $2 for monthly paper billing. This is in effort to reduce paper waste and to push customers towards e.bill.

E.bill is when customers are emailed their monthly bill instead of receiving a paper statement. Unfortunately, e.bill is an opt-in feature, if you do not change to online billing by September 21, your account will start getting the automatic $2.00 charge.

New Telus Customers
Upon activating your contract, make sure to select e.bill as an option. Failure to do so will result in a $2 charge a month for paper billing.

Existing Telus Customers
Call customer support to change to e.bill by September 21, 2010.

Fido was the first to introduce a fee for paper billing and it looks like all the major carriers will eventually follow. No news yet on when Rogers will introduce the fees.

I think its a great idea. When I had paper billing it often went straight into the trash. Online billing has been wonderful for me. I get all the detail I would get in a paper bill, without the environmental waste.

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Image Bottom bit. Originally uploaded by The Lazy Canadian

To all my gizmo and gadget junkie friends out there… we may have to start paying more than just the 12% tax for our delicious addictions.

Manitoba is considering introducing a E-Waste Fee on electronics purchases that will go towards the recycling of those products later on.

Rates would fluctuate depending on the size of the product. A small cellphone could potential have a 10 cent fee attached to it, where a larger 50″ LCD TV will have a $20 fee attached to it.

I agree that this fee would definitely help the environment, but I really don’t think having it as a ‘fee’ or a ‘tax’ that shows up at check-out is the way to go. A better idea would be to have these fees charged to retailers and have them added on top of product prices.

I don’t mind the 10 cents levy charges every now and then for pop.. but if theres a $10 E-Waste fee for every iPhone/iPad/iMac/iToy Apple comes out with, then it will definitely add up.

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Image iPad Camera Connection Kit Originally uploaded by Yutaka Tsutano