Why it’s Time to re-Think how and what Plastics we Recycle in Canada
Not all plastics are made equal. Surprising to some, there are many different kinds of plastics – some of which are recyclable and some of which not. Though plastics are traditionally tossed into the blue bin, this occasionally creates complications.
It just might be time to re-think how we do recycling in Toronto and what we choose to include. A lot of the contemporary debate on plastics in recycling in Canada is spurred from China deciding it was no longer accepting foreign plastics onto its shores. It was that decision that left many North American municipalities without a defined plan on where their plastics were to go.
As it pertains to what plastics are recyclable and which aren’t, a lot of that plays into the markets. There are high-value plastics that are easy to recycle because they are in strong demand. Then, there are some plastics that can be recycled but that are not in high demand and so they may not get recycled. Lastly, there are the plastics that cannot be recycled under any case because we either do not have the facilities to do so or there’s not enough financial reward on the back-end for it to make sense. In the recycling blue bin of Toronto and other municipalities, it may be time to give some thought to how we separate our plastics and what plastics we choose to accept.
Any time recyclable plastics end up in our landfills, that’s a loss to us. Any time that non-recyclable plastics contaminate a haul of otherwise recyclable plastics, that’s also a loss. Thus, to all these questions about landfills, there’s only a few select solutions. There’s finding a way to create the demand to recycle these plastics which may or may not be possible, depending on what organization or expert you speak with. There’s creating the facilities in which these products can be recycled however to do that, one is hinging on their being market demand for it.
Naturally, it would be best to recycle as much as we can. Unfortunately, in this day and age, that is just not possible. Ontario municipalities continue to collect plastics that are just not financially viable enough to recycle. It might be time to do without collecting recycling where there is no financial profit to be derived from.
Right now, there’s no questioning that there’s a lot of confusion on behalf of consumers related to what to recycle and how it can be recycled. Justifying the recycling of plastic bottles but making it so that grocery bags are not recyclable is difficult to explain to some people. The truth is though that right now, there’s a hierarchy of plastic out there with only some of it that has merit to recycling.
The future of Canadian recycling is going to have to be built on developing systems that make it easy for consumers to recycle and that make it financially responsible for municipalities to do the same. This is perhaps the only way to move forward if we are to create truly environmentally-friendly solutions to the growing waste problem set to face Canadians in the decades to come.
As a waste management and recycling company, Core Mini Bins believes in minimizing non-recyclables as best as is possible. As we seek to maximize recycling efforts here in the GTA and across Canada, we look forward to a future wherein plastics are better accommodated for.
