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Archive for recycling

What PPEC will be Watching in 2023

As the Paper and Paperboard Packaging Environmental Council (PPEC) continues to work on achieving its mission to promote the environmental sustainability of the Canadian paper packaging industry, we will also be closely monitoring the following key issues in 2023:

Extended Producer Responsibility and Recycling
 
Extended Producer Responsibility (EPR) is a policy approach in which a producer – a business that makes or sells obligated materials – is made financially and physically responsible for ensuring their products and packaging are properly managed at the end of their life.
 
While PPEC members have not historically been obligated stewards of these programs – our members typically engage in business-to-business transactions, and do not directly supply finished products to consumers – such recycling programs are critical as they are an important supply of our industry’s feedstock, allowing PPEC members to use high amounts of recycled content in the three major paper packaging grades.
 
This year will be busy with changes to existing programs and government consultations, and PPEC will be closely monitoring and participating in consultations. For more information on EPR for paper and packaging, and the status of provincial programs, please visit PPEC’s new EPR web page.
 
EPR also continues to ramp up across the border with several U.S. states enacting or developing packaging producer responsibility laws including Maine, Oregon, Colorado, and California. PPEC follows the activities of the American Forest and Paper Association and the Fibre Box Association to stay informed about U.S. EPR activity.
 
Landfill bans
 
As part of the Government of Canada’s commitment to reduce emissions by 40 to 45% below 2005 levels by 2030, and achieve net-zero emissions by 2050, they are looking at ways to reduce methane emissions from municipal solid waste landfills.
 
PPEC has long supported banning old corrugated boxes from landfill as it would reduce methane and ensure that valuable materials are diverted and recycled.
 
When organic waste – such as food, yard waste, and paper products – is disposed in landfills, it produces methane, a greenhouse gas.
 
A landfill disposal ban is a tool that stipulates that certain materials are not accepted for disposal; they are often used when there is a recycling program in place for that material. For example, Nova ScotiaPrince Edward Island, and Metro Vancouver have banned corrugated cardboard from their jurisdiction’s disposal sites.
 
The bottom line is that used boxes should not end up in landfill. Recycled paper packaging represents our industry’s feedstock as it is continually collected and recycled through residential and business recycling programs, allowing those materials to be remade into new paper packaging products again and again.
 
New Forestry Statistics
 
Sustainable forest management is a fundamental pillar for PPEC and its members and is essential to the Canadian paper-based packaging industry.
 
While most paper packaging made in Canada is produced with recycled content, the paper fibres it was originally made from came from a tree. However, the Canadian paper packaging industry doesn’t use much in the way of freshly cut trees, and the little that is harvested must be successfully regenerated by law. In 2019, the total forest harvest (for lumber and all paper grades including packaging) represented 0.2% of Canada’s forest land, according to The State of Canada’s Forests Annual Report, which is published annually by Natural Resources Canada.
 
The 2022 Annual Report was recently released and is a key source of data on Canada’s forests and its sustainable management, which PPEC uses to correct misinformation about the Canadian paper-based packaging industry.
 
PFAS
 
PPEC continues to monitor government activity related to PFAS, or perfluoroalkyl and polyfluoroalkyl substances, which are a class of chemicals that, in some cases, have been found to be potentially harmful to the environment and human health.
 
As perfluoroalkyl substances can provide oil, grease, and water resistance, PFAS can be found in some types of paper-based food packaging.
 
The Government of Canada is currently considering activities that would address PFAS as a broad class and published a notice of intent in the Canada Gazette. In the U.S., several states have passed laws banning intentionally-added PFAS in packaging. New York’s new law took effect December 31 and prohibits the intentional application of PFAS in packages or packaging components designed for direct food contact, which can include wrappers, bags and tubs that are made from paper, paperboard, and other materials derived from plant fibres.
 
Environmental Claims and Definitions
 
The issue of greenwashing continues to be an increasingly important priority of enforcement agencies across North America and globally. In Canada, environmental claims are overseen by the Competition Bureau who archived its enforcement guidelines on environmental claims last year. In the U.S., the Federal Trade Commission oversees consumer protection and competition issues, and is currently consulting on potential changes to their Green Guides which provide guidance on the use of environmental and recycling claims. And in Europe, the European Union is apparently reviewing the definition of what counts as “recyclable” as they look to overhaul their packaging waste law.
 
Given recent enforcement activity surrounding environmental claims, and confusion around some of the terminology – recovery, collection, recycling, diversion, end markets – PPEC will be looking to address some of the issues with definitions, how it impacts data, and how they relate to environmental claims over the next year.
 
Carbon and Climate Change
 
PPEC continues to monitor government and industry climate change and carbon reduction initiatives. While paper-based packaging is highly recyclable and recycled across Canada and made from a renewable resource using sustainable forest management practices, we are currently gathering available data related to carbon emissions of paper packaging material.

Rachel Kagan

Executive Director Paper & Paperboard Packaging Environmental Council (PPEC)

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Celebrating Circular Economy Month

Earlier this year, the Circular Innovation Council announced that October marks the inaugural Circular Economy Month. As the Council continues to build on the success of their annual #WasteReductionWeek, they are now expanding the focus to circular economy for the entire month.

In their announcement, they shared “For 20 years Waste Reduction Week in Canada has focused on the concepts of waste reduction and recycling as a key component of our transition to a circular economy…Circular Innovation Council is extending Waste Reduction Week in Canada beyond the third week of October into Circular Economy Month to educate and excite Canadians about the opportunities and benefits of the circular economy.”

SourceCircular Innovation Council

As paper-based packaging is one of Canada’s first circular economies, PPEC is excited to support this campaign. We recognize that focusing on the circular economy is a continual, year-round activity, and there is no doubt that drawing additional attention to it and creating a larger discussion throughout October will be beneficial to raising awareness and enhancing education. 

What is a circular economy, and why is it important?

The Ellen Macarthur Foundation states that “a circular economy is a systemic approach to economic development designed to benefit businesses, society, and the environment. In contrast to the ‘take-make-waste’ linear model, a circular economy is regenerative by design and aims to gradually decouple growth from the consumption of finite resources.” 

And according to the report, “Turning Point – The Expert Panel on the Circular Economy in Canada” from the Council of Canadian Academies, “Only 6.1% of materials entering the Canadian economy come from recycled sources…For Canada to maintain its strong economy and global competitiveness, meet its commitments to reducing carbon emissions and maintaining biodiversity, and keep its people prosperous and healthy, it is critical that Canada’s economy to become more circular.” 

We all have a role to play to play in developing and supporting the circular economy – from businesses actively working to reduce their climate footprint, to governments developing evidence-based policies, and to consumers understanding the environmental impacts of their purchases.  

The Stanford Graduate School of Business agrees as their recent white paper, the Road Toward a Circular Value Chain, states, “…businesses alone cannot win this battle. A successful transition to a circular economy requires all stakeholders…to take action, so that we can leave future generations a better world to live in.” 

Paper-Based Packaging: A Canadian Circular Economy Success Story

Our industry’s circular economy starts with PPEC members and the mills that produce the raw material, which is mostly made up of recycled content. 

From there, converters turn it into recyclable paper-based packaging, which is used by businesses, government, institutions, and consumers. Once used, it is recycled, making its way back to the mill to be remade into new paper packaging products. And the process starts all over again.

Recycling is a critical component of the Canadian paper packaging industry’s circular economy. Recycled content keeps raw materials flowing longer, reducing the need to extract virgin materials. And the average recycled content for domestic shipments of the three major paper packaging grades – containerboard, boxboard, and kraft paper – is close to 82%, based on PPEC’s 2020 Recycled Content Survey

And while research shows that paper can be recycled up to seven times, and corrugated box fibres up to ten times, a recent study from Graz University of Technology in Austria found that fibre-based packaging material can be recycled at least 25 times without losing mechanical or structural integrity. While this new research suggests that paper and board fibres are even more durable than previously thought, we know that we still have work to do to try to better understand how many times paper fibres can be recycled in Canadian recycling systems.  

That circularity only comes with each player playing their part – from the businesses like PPEC members making it a priority to use recycled content in their operations, to consumers actively and responsibly recycling their paper-based packaging.

Using less and making less – just makes sense all around. Paper packaging is a circular economy that utilizes renewable resources that are regenerated, promotes the use of recycled content, and minimizes waste.

Rachel Kagan

Executive Director
Paper & Paperboard Packaging Environmental Council
(PPEC)

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British Columbians and Nova Scotians are Canada’s best recyclers

Nova Scotia might have the country’s highest diversion rate as a province (44%) but British Columbians recycle more as individuals.

An analysis of the latest data from Statistics Canada shows that the average British Columbian diverted 377 kilograms of waste in 2016. That’s 60 kilograms more than the average Nova Scotian and twice as much as people living in Saskatchewan. The average Canadian diverted 263 kilograms of waste, the equivalent of about one heavy (50 pound) suitcase a month.Diversion rate per person by province

The “waste” includes used paper, plastic, glass, metals, textiles, organics (food scraps), electronics, tires, white goods such as fridges and appliances, and construction, renovation and demolition materials like wood, drywall, doors, windows and wiring.

There are some interesting differences between Canada’s two waste diversion leaders. Nova Scotia’s population is quite concentrated within a relatively small area compared to British Columbia, which would seem to give the waste diversion advantage to Nova Scotia. BC’s recycling results, on the other hand, are spread more broadly and thus less reliant on major tonnage diversion coming from just one or two material streams.

For example, while paper and organics are the major material streams diverted in each province, there’s a marked difference in their relative contribution to the provincial total. In British Columbia, paper recycling and organics diversion represent about one-third of the total each. But in Nova Scotia, organics recovery alone is responsible for over half (53%) of the province’s resulting diversion. Without that substantial diversion of organics, Nova Scotia would slip down the provincial rankings.

The data thus indicate opportunities for improvement as well: for BC to boost its organics diversion (it’s currently ranked  third behind Nova Scotia and New Brunswick in organics diversion per person) and for Nova Scotia to focus more attention on collecting materials other than organics (for example, it’s ranked sixth out of the eight reporting provinces in diverting paper).

Of course, better data, particularly on the industrial, commercial and institutional (IC & I) side would help. We believe that the diversion of paper in Nova Scotia is significantly higher than the Statistics Canada numbers indicate.

Diversion Rate for BC and NS

(This is the latest in a series of recent blogs on waste and recycling data in Canada. Here are the links to the others: Good news and bad news in dumping of waste (October 11, 2018); Where’s the garbage coming from? More and more from homes (February 19, 2019); Canada’s waste diversion rate slowly inches higher (February 28, 2019).

 

Pot calling the kettle black?

The Toronto Star ran a front page story over the weekend lambasting Ontario’s tire stewardship body (OTS) for spending  “thousands of dollars on wine tasting, meals at fine restaurants, a boat cruise, luxury hotels, and donations to political (parties).” The newspaper huffed in its “little piggies at the trough” depiction that OTS was operating without public oversight.

Now we are no fan of unreasonable administrative expenses. And if, in fact, they were unreasonable in this case, then Waste Diversion Ontario, which is supposed to monitor OTS, and the Minister of Environment and Climate Change to whom the WDO ultimately reports, should do something about it.

But it seems to us that the Star’s real target, clear in previous articles it has carried, is the existence of provincial industry funding organisations (IFOs) themselves. These, it recently thundered, are essentially “industry cartels” that pluck “tens of millions of dollars from consumers’ pockets every year.”

TorontoStar

The Star should tread carefully here because what applies to the IFOs for tires and used electronics equally applies to Blue Box materials, including newspapers. In the case of tires, the tire producers and retailers pay for the recycling of tires. In the case of newspapers, the newspaper publishers contribute to an industry Blue Box fund that helps pay for the costs of recycling newspapers.

In the case of tires, the fees are passed on to the consumers of those tires. In the case of newspapers, we assume that the newspaper stewards pass along their fees to the consumers of newspapers as part of their costs. The Star claims that OTS made contributions to political parties. We don’t know whether Stewardship Ontario (the Blue Box IFO) has made similar political contributions, but we do know that individual newspaper publishers, including the Star, frequently throw their editorial weight behind one political party or another.

The only difference that we see, then, between how the newspaper publishers and the tire retailers manage the costs of their respective recycling programs, is that the tire fee is visible at retail. Tire consumers see what they are being charged for. Newspaper consumers, on the other hand, do not see any of their Blue Box eco-fees highlighted. They are hidden, but still passed on (or “plucked from consumers’ pockets”, as the Star would say). In the interests of public transparency and editorial integrity then, we would suggest that before the Star rushes out to loudly denounce eco-fees and IFOs again, that perhaps it should check what’s going on in its own house first. It would be nice to know the difference between the plucker and the plucked.