“Reduce, reuse, recycle” are three key components of waste management. Legislation
has largely focused on the ‘recycle’ element. Current recycling regulations have not addressed a significant problem: packaging waste, specifically plastic waste. 3 million tonnes of plastic are discarded per year and less than 10% gets recycled (Marchildon 2019). Plastic is particularly damaging because it requires up to 500 years to decompose. Plastic straws take 200 years, water bottles 450 years, and Styrofoam 500 years (Amentrout 2021). All plastic ever made is either in its original form, in a recycled product or breaking down into tiny microplastic pieces (Armentrout 2021). Plastic leaks toxins into soil; kills wildlife through suffocation, entanglement, or ingestion; and microplastics found in food and water are carcinogenic and cause human health disorders (Armentrout 2021; IUCN 2021). If all global plastic waste were to be recycled, the energy equivalent of 3.5 billion barrels of oil per year could be saved, which would reduce carbon emissions (Plastic Action Centre 2022).  Plastic production is predicted to become one of the main causes of future fossil fuel use (Plastic Action Centre 2022). To improve waste and carbon emissions, policies are needed to regulate single-use, non-biodegradable packaging waste and encourage behaviour change.

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TAX (EXTERNALITIES) & REWARD
•    Tax new plastic: Tax new plastic sold to make recycled plastic more competitive in terms of pricing, as well as to discourage new plastic production. The tax applied to new plastic should be just enough to make it the same price as recycled plastic. The tax revenue can be used to subsidize recycled plastic. This policy helps create demand for recycled plastic and recycling in general. 
•   Packaging takeback reward: Companies who take back packaging to reuse it are financially rewarded. Companies who don’t are subject to additional taxes. By cleaning and reusing packaging instead of creating new packaging, waste is prevented. Note: Applies only to specific industries (food, clothing, cosmetics, etc.) and packaging, such as food packaging, glass containers; makeup and cosmetic packaging; clothing hangers, bags, and shipping bags. This helps reduce waste in landfills as well as unnecessary recycling (or attempted recycling) of packaging.
•    Incentivize biodegradable packaging: Financially reward companies (with rebates/reduced taxes) who choose to use biodegradable, eco-friendly plant-based packaging instead of Styrofoam, single-use disposable plastic, or other landfill-bound materials. Companies who still use landfill-bound materials have a small additional flat tax (2-3%) added at the end of the year. This helps reduce waste or improve the type of waste being disposed.
•    Landfill plastic fee: Introduce a landfill fee for companies whose products include disposable plastic packaging. Higher fee for companies whose packaging is not recyclable. The fee can be dependent on the company’s profit (similar to tax brackets, different fee depending on which bracket the company falls in). Companies with no plastic packaging are not charged any fee. This fee puts a price on the externality of plastic waste, for both landfills and water bodies. 
 

REGULATION CHANGES
•    Require recycled content: Require certain levels of recycled content in new packaging. This also creates a guaranteed demand for recycled materials.
•    Methane tax: Require companies in certain industries to become responsible for the post-consumer disposal of their products/packaging. Companies would be required to pay for landfill methane emissions based on their products in landfills. Companies need to report the details of disposal of their products (how many sent to landfill, reused, recycled, other). After reporting the tonnes of waste send to landfill, they will be taxed on methane emissions released per tonne of waste. This is essentially the carbon tax concept applied to methane. Taxing packaging waste encourages companies to create biodegradable packaging; and taxing product waste in landfills encourages companies to make products that last longer and end up in landfills less often, as well as encouraging companies to take back products at the end of their life cycle to recycle them.
•    Tax planned obsolescence: Require companies to track how long their products last on average. Companies that design products to last longer (e.g. 20 years instead of 10) will be rewarded with rebates, whereas companies whose products break quickly will have a tax added to their products. This policy would apply only to certain industries/products, such as appliances, clothing, footwear, etc. The tax is done on a scale based on product lifespan (which is also revealed from the product’s warranty). An independent body would be created to set the standards for how long a product should last (e.g. 20 years for a dishwasher, 15 years for a vacuum, etc.). Companies whose products last for a long time/come with long warranties would receive money from the companies who designed their products with planned obsolescence and got taxed. This would help reduce landfill waste.
•   Improve plastic composition: Incentivize companies to design plastic for recycling/making it easier to recycle.  Scientists should advise on the best possible plastic compositions for recycling. Following this, a regulation could be passed that requires companies to adhere to the new plastic standards with packaging they produce, giving a few years to transition to the new standard.
•    Standardize recyclable items: Standardize what goes in the blue bin across the province. Some jurisdictions do not accept certain waste for recycling, whereas others do.
The money from taxes is either a) redistributed to the eco-friendly companies or b) used towards restoring landfills and other projects to reduce waste/improve landfills, as well as educational campaigns.
 

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​Sources

Armentrout, B. (2021, April 22). How long does it take for plastic to decompose? Chariot Energy. Retrieved March 6, 2022, from https://chariotenergy.com/blog/how-long-until-plastic-decomposes/

 

Environment and Climate Change Canada (ECCC). (2021, December 30). Government of Canada moving forward with banning harmful single-use plastics. Canada.ca. Retrieved March 5, 2022, from https://www.canada.ca/en/environment-climate-change/news/2021/12/government-of-canada-moving-forward-with-banning-harmful-single-use-plastics0.html

 

Environment and Climate Change Canada (ECCC). (2022, February). (issue brief). Technical Issues Paper: Recycled Content for certain plastic manufactured items Regulations. Government of Canada.

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Marchildon, J. (2019, October 30). Another Canadian province just banned single-use plastic bags. Global Citizen. Retrieved March 5, 2022, from https://www.globalcitizen.org/en/content/nova-scotia-plastic-bag-ban/

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Plastic Action Centre. (2022). Innovating the plastics value chain. Retrieved April 6, 2022, from https://plasticactioncentre.ca/directory/innovating-the-plastics-value-chain/​

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