Canadian municipalities, groups ask government to address waste

Nova Scotian committee proposes extended producer responsibility legislation for the province.

© Image’in / stock.adobe.com

© Image’in / stock.adobe.com

Municipalities in Nova Scotia, Canada, submitted a proposal to Nova Scotia Environment Minister Gordon Wilson to request that industry start contributing to the costs of recycling packaging and printed paper, according to a news release from the Canadian Broadcasting Corp. (CBC), Ottawa, Canada. Nova Scotia’s solid waste-resource management regional chairs committee called on the government to introduce extended producer responsibility (EPR) legislation.

In the proposal sent to Wilson, Andrew Garrett, communications manager and regional coordinator at Valley Waste-Resource Management, Kentville, Nova Scotia, said that “taxpayers of the province have been paying the bill for too long and we think it is time that the producers of the waste pay their fair share.”

CBC reports that solid waste-resource management regional chairs committee’s proposed legislation would require industry stewards and the government to determine fees related to processing materials and finding new markets. The proposal also includes exemptions for small businesses; companies with less than $2 million in annual revenue, only one storefront and that supply less than one metric ton of paper and printed packaging a year would be exempt. Newspapers and registered charities would also be exempt. 

Additionally, only about 250 businesses in the province would be affected by the legislation, CBC reports in a news release.

Environmental organizations request action in Canada

In addition, 12 ocean conservancy and environmental groups also have requested that Canada’s environment and health ministers take regulatory action on plastic waste and pollution under the Canadian Environmental Protection Act 1999 and call on the government of Canada to add any plastic generated as waste, or discharged from the use or disposal of products or packaging, to the Schedule 1 List of Toxic Substances under the 1999 act. 

The 12 groups that have banded together to make this request to Canada’s environmental and health ministers include Surfrider Foundation Canada, The Ocean Legacy Foundation, Environmental Defence Canada, West Coast Environmental Law, Friends of the Earth Canada, Pacific Wild Alliance, BC Marine Trails Association, Coastal Restoration Society, Sea Shepherd Conservation Society, Greenwave Environmental Consulting, Sea Legacy and Association for Denman Island Marine Stewards. 

The Ocean Legacy Foundation, a nonprofit in British Columbia that aims to address plastic pollution, reports that this proposed action would allow the federal government to pass laws requiring producers of products containing plastics or using plastic packaging to collect and recycle them; to prevent exports to developing countries; to require recycled plastics to be used in making products and packaging; to ban single-use plastic items that aren’t collected and end up as litter and marine pollution; and to reduce microplastic waste from clothing and other products.

“We see discarded plastic bottles, bottle caps, cigarette butts, fishing nets, buoys, crab trays, ropes and polystyrene all along the coast and in the coastal waters of British Columbia,” says Chloé Dubois, president of the Ocean Legacy Foundation. “We can see it, scientists say it is having an impact and other jurisdictions are taking action.”

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