By David Dodge and Kay Rollans
Thanks to the global waste crisis, microplastic pollution, and calls to ban single-use products, there is a growing movement to make producers responsible for their waste.
The idea is called extended producer responsibility (EPR), and according to Jeff Linton, president of the Alberta Beverage Container Management Board, it could not only help to reduce waste, but also stimulate the economy and keep money in taxpayer pockets.
EPR could create jobs—a lot of jobs
In an EPR model, producers take responsibility for both the disposal of their own products at end of life and the costs associated with that disposal. This differs, says Linton, from waste disposal models such as the blue box program, the costs of which typically landed on the shoulders of taxpayers.
Linton knows all about EPR programs because beverage container deposit systems such as the one he manages in Alberta are, essentially, already running on an EPR model. Producers are required to collect a deposit on beverage containers, which encourages consumers to return those containers for recycling or reuse by the producer.
“We manage over two billion containers per year on a recovery system that achieves an 86 per cent return rate,” says Linton. In other words, Alberta’s deposit system on beverage containers keeps 86 per cent of those containers out of landfills—but that’s not all.
Those two billion returned containers are the backbone of a thriving industry. it’s a $350 million economy that exists in 171 different communities in Alberta,” says Linton—and one that employs over 3,100 people and funds various charities and not-for-profits to the tune of over 30 million dollars per year.
And that’s just the beverage container industry. The economic boost — and the boatload of jobs — that would result from applying the EPR model to all producer-created waste is no joke. By incentivizing producers to turn what we now see as waste into a useable and reusable resource, EPR will create whole new industries. “I think we’re talking about tens of thousands of jobs and we’re talking about billions of dollars of created wealth,” Linton says.
Harnessing market forces to tackle waste
Momentum is building to apply EPR more broadly, and in particular to apply it to plastic wastes, but the system will work a bit differently than it does with beverage containers. Rather than a deposit-based system, Linton explains, EPR for plastic wastes would be based on “an assessment of how much weight of plastic you’re putting into the [waste management] system compared to the cost of keeping [that plastic] out of the landfill.” Producers would then be charged the cost of recovering that plastic waste.
Becoming financially responsible for their waste should incentivize producers to reduce the amount of waste they create. It is also likely that, for the waste they do create, producers will work to find ways to effectively and efficiently recover that waste before it enters the waste management system. Linton says that, like in the world of beverage containers, producers could be expected to achieve 80 – 90 per cent recovery rates, meaning that little to none of their waste materials would go to landfills.
The Canadian Council of Ministers of the Environment created an action plan in 2009, including a specific strategy for sustainable packaging. The council actively monitored the progress of EPR in Canada for six years (the last report being published in 2016). Even so, some provinces are only now, a decade since the introduction of this action plan, beginning to look into EPR programs. Progress has, clearly, been slow.
According to Linton, B.C., was “first out of the gate” when it comes to an EPR program specifically targeting product packaging. Several other provinces are working on similar packaging-specific EPR programs, but the road has been long and winding.
Despite the historical inertia, Linton, a 30-year veteran of the recycling business, is very confident that change is coming. “I think where we’re coming to is this perfect storm where the manufacturers are engaging, the politicians are engaging, and society is engaging all at the same time,” says Linton.
Waste crisis “perfect storm” fans flames of social engagement
We talked to Linton earlier this month at the Recycling Council of Alberta Sea Change conference, where his “perfect storm” could be seen making landfall right in front of us. John Coyne of Unilever, a global consumer goods manufacturer, spoke at the same conference about EPR from the perspective of businesses and producers. Indeed, the topic of EPR came up again and again.
Waste is, indeed, on all of our minds. This is, perhaps, no surprise, considering the current media storm on microplastic pollution, Asian countries refusing low quality plastics, threats to marine life, single-use plastic bans, and more.
Recently, more and more stories have been cropping up about Canada’s own recycling practices. In one example, CBC Marketplace went to Malaysia, posing as undercover businesspeople trying to sell some good old Canadian plastic to the Malaysian recycling industry, rather than shoulder the cost of recycling that waste at home. The report shows, however, that some Malaysian recycling facilities purchase plastic waste illegally, and do not necessarily recycle all of the waste they purchase. Instead, some of the plastic is burned in factories and even uncontrolled piles, sending toxic fumes spewing over people’s homes.
The story caused an uproar amongst Canadian recycling programs. Recycle B.C. was especially incensed, saying that the transactions did not reflect the “sophisticated system of checks and balances” that exist in B.C.’s recycling program. B.C. may, indeed, be responsibly managing their recyclable waste, but others in Canada certainly are not. Take, for example, the Canadian company who shipped 103 shipping containers full of garbage to the Philippines, saying it was recyclable plastic waste.
Regardless of how well the CBC Marketplace report represents the recycling practices or specific Canadian recycling programs, it does show that the international recycling does a lot less actual recycling than we may have previously thought. Stories like this one could, however, be a blessing in disguise by increasing public awareness and inspiring initiatives to improve recycling practices at home. This combined with brewing EPR initiatives could significantly ramp up efforts and the expertise needed to recycle plastics domestically.
Linton and his colleagues in the recycling industry have known how to tackle the waste issue for years, but finally, after many years, he says change is coming and he’s smiling. It’s the motivation of the younger generations that, Linton believes, will bring EPR and other environmental initiatives to fruition.
“They are going to be the ones that create this change and the social movement is going to create so much enthusiasm and energy that nobody is going to be able to stop it,” says Linton.
Jeff Linton is the president of the Alberta Beverage Container Management Board, a not-for-profit organization established under Alberta’s Environmental Protection and Enhancement Act to manage and regulate Alberta’s beverage container recycling system.