Last week, The Ottawa Citizen’s Kelly Egan wrote an article about cardboard recycling in Canada. In Thinking inside the box — pandemic creates crush of new cardboard, Egan provides some stats about paper packaging recycling and the consumption of trees — some of which are correct, and some of which are confusing. Egan reached out […]
Providing Clarity on The Ottawa Citizen’s Cardboard Recycling Article Read More »
Green visions, aspirational goals, and political grandstanding are all very well in their place. But at some point, we have to be realistic. The fact of the matter is that the overall waste diversion rate of Ontario’s Blue Box is unlikely to improve much over the next ten years, and the new diversion targets proposed
Recycled content is the key component in the creation of a circular economy. It keeps raw materials flowing within the economy longer, reduces the pressure to extract more virgin materials from the earth, and delays their eventual disposal as waste. Recovering more materials for further use also creates jobs. A circular economy is something that
How about a different approach to recycled content and the circular economy? Read More »
The good news is that Ontario householders are generating less paper, plastic, glass and metal waste these days, 14% less than they were back in 2003. That is the year the province regulated industry to share the net cost of the province’s popular Blue Box program and waste statistics became more widely available. Of course,
Good news and bad news on Ontario’s Blue Box Read More »
An analysis of the last 10 years of data on Blue Box-type materials generated by Ontario households shows a 34% increase in the amount of plastic packaging ending up in the home. And most of it (70%) did not get sent on for recycling. The major increase is in the catch-all category of “other” plastics,
Almost 80,000 more tonnes of plastic in Ontario homes than 10 years ago Read More »
The current debate over what to do about Ontario’s Blue Box frequently confuses at least four distinct but interrelated issues: waste management in general; the recycling option; the relative roles of industry and householders; and the nature of the Blue Box program itself. First, the broader context. The Blue Box program is just one waste collection system,
Let’s get the facts straight on Ontario’s Blue Box Read More »
This is a story about what’s recyclable, what is sent for recycling, and the fees that stewards of those materials pay into Ontario’s Blue Box system. In what seems like a perversion of the ‘polluter pays’ principle, some of the worst performing materials pay among the lowest fees. There are two elements to this story.
Some of the worst performing Blue Box materials pay the lowest fees Read More »
PPEC’s popular fact sheets have been revamped and updated, all 34 of them. Broken into five sections of interest, the factsheets cover a broad range of topics: from why packaging exists to where it comes from (trees); from what it’s made from to how it’s made; and to the industry’s history of reduction, re-use, and
Everything you wanted to know about paper packaging Read More »
The recovery rate of Ontario’s residential Blue Box system has slipped again, to its lowest level since 2005. According to Stewardship Ontario, the 2018 recovery rate was 60.2%, just barely above the mandated provincial target. Almost three-quarters of what’s currently being recovered is paper of one kind or another, the same as it was back
Ontario Blue Box recovery rate barely above 60% provincial target Read More »
While the collective weight of Blue Box materials generated by Ontario households has not changed much over the last 15 years, the type of material that ends up there certainly has. Far fewer newspapers, for starters. Almost 136,000 tonnes fewer, according to a PPEC comparison of Stewardship Ontario generation data between 2003 and 2017. Magazines
Fewer newspapers but more packaging in Ontario households Read More »
