Firstly, I think you’ll find if I clandestine dump garbage in your front yard, no witnesses, it will indeed fall to you to clean it up.
Secondly, yes, a requirement in law was what I proposed. If retailers want to only take plastic THEY sold, they need to mark it or identify it in some way, I suppose. Or, yknow switch, as quick as possible, to manufacturers that use recyclable containers.
If they can make beer tins returnable, without real incident, wherever they originate, they can manage this I reckon.
I do wonder why she ran over and over again in such a hard riding. I’ve no idea why she though she would win in a riding that’s been solidly Liberal for ages.
It’s considered a badge of honour to run in your own riding or at least close by. Jagmeet Singh only won his riding by less than 3,000 votes (although I’m not sure there are any safe NDP ridings in Canada, and there aren’t any safe Green Party ridings either).
Furthermore, I don’t think she was a good leader so poor decisions don’t surprise me. Of course, she was backstabbed by other incompetents in her party.
Beer cans AREN’T necessarily returned to where they came from. Every jurisdiction approaches this differently but basically none of them say you bring the can back to precisely where you bought it. (And you only have to bring it back if you want a deposit, of course.)
What you’re suggesting is absurdly impractical and might have unexpected downsides - for one thing I’d fully expect people to start just throwing plastic away in the garbage.
Actually, in British Columbia, law says that not only CAN you bring the can back to precisely where you bought it, but that the retailer who sold you that can MUST accept it and give you your deposit back. Consumers are limited to 24 containers per day in any one location.
Your jurisdiction may vary, but in the province of BC at least, you are wrong.
I expect the same thing could work with plastics. If you sell single use plastics, you’d be obligated to accept them back into your store and be responsible for getting them into the recycling stream. Same as cans and bottles in b.c.
What I don’t get is why they don’t just put deposits on all this stuff. We do that with beer, wine and liquor containers, and you rarely see them littering the streets, because it’s worth money for someone to pick them up. Hell, there are guys who go through my neighborhood every garbage day to pick up beer cans that people (like me!) are too lazy to take back themselves. I get rid of my cans, they get a few bucks in their pocket, and none of the cans end up in a landfill. Win-win-win.
We used to do the same for soda bottles when I was younger.
This is a solved problem, as far as I’m concerned. It’s not my fault the Powers That Be don’t seem to want to just use an existing system that is known to work.
In BC, there is a 10 cent deposit for all ready-to-drink beverage containers containing soft drinks, juice, water, energy and sports drinks regardless of the size. I don’t understand why some provinces got rid of this.
Returnable, reusable glass bottles for soft drinks and beer were disliked by the bottling companies and they lobbied to do away with them years ago, at least in BC. Basically, it made them responsible for the bottles. In the case of beer bottles, bottlers wanted to be free to design and use their own bottles as a marketing device, rather than use the standard “stubby” bottle with their own label attached. Glass posed other problems, that is, expenses, for the bottlers.
Today, retail outlets are responsible for the plastic bottles, and most of the plastic bottles go into landfills, even when consumers and retailers “recycle” them.
“In 2019, 90% of collected material was managed by recycling, 3% was managed by recovery and produced into engineered fuel, and the remaining material contamination that simply cannot be recycled or recovered – was managed by disposal.”
Deposits are put on things that are actually profitable to recycle. A recycling center will give you money for bottles because they get paid when they in turn sell them.
Do you know what happens to goods we encourage recycling for, but aren’t actually profitable to recycle? They either get shipped to Asia where they are sorted out of the good stuff and then dumped in rivers to eventually make their way into the ocean, or they wind up sitting in warehouses for years and eventually dumped in a landfill anyway when the warehouses fill up.
Anything iffy is better off just put in a landfill. We have to sort our garbage in our city, separating out the recyclables that are going to Asia, and putting everything else in the garbage. The list of plastics that cannot be recycled is very long. I will list it:
Stuff that cannot be recycled in Edmonton:
All fast food containers.
All foil and plastic wrap.
All drink cups and coffee pods.
All single-use plastics like straws and cutlery.
Bubble wrap, padded envelopes and shredded paper
Disposable gloves, masks and diapers
Anything styrofoam
Worn out clothing
Snack wrappers and bags
All of this goes into the landfill, and does not contribute to ocean plastic. It’s generable stable in a landfill and doesn’t create toxic waste. It’s all petroleum based, and when it goes into a landfill it sequesters a bit of carbon. Not enough to make a difference, but neither is the increase in landfill space.
Deposits are put on things that we as a society don’t want to see littering the landscape. The deposit serves as a “carrot” to encourage the user (or someone) to get these items to a central depot for proper recycling or even proper disposal. This is something that a functioning government can do to encourage society to do the right thing - because individuals need some kind of (positive or negative) incentive.
If there is enough profit in it, there is no need for these incentives or disincentives. If I throw gold coins around, we don’t need to put a deposit on them to encourage folks to pick them up.
So which things have a deposit on them that aren’t profitable to recycle? As I understand it, the recycling centers that take bottles and cans and such are independent, for-profit outfits. All the things you can take to them are things that have deposits. Back in the day, you could take glass bottles right back to the bottler and they would pay you for them, even before deposits were a thing.
Your understanding is limited. This is not the case across Canada.
Plastic water bottles and other plastic drink containers have a deposit in BC, and are returned to depots, as well as to the stores that sell them. This deposit and recycling system is not being done “For profit”. The plastic is of little commercial value.
It’s a very successful program, and has led to a lot of crap not going into the local landfills.
We have deposits on wine bottles, beer bottles, and beer cans only. The Beer Store - a commercial monopoly for multi-brand beer larger than 6 packs owned by Labatt, Molson, and Sleeman (and their corporate parent now) - collects and reimburses on these containers. Beer bottles are returned to the bottler for washing and reuse, the rest is recycled.
Everything else is handled by municipal recycling - pop bottles/cans, water bottles, tetra packs, etc. with no deposit system.
And liquor bottles. We should also note that the deposits on wine and liquor bottles is a relatively recent addition mandated by the province. Prior to this mandate, no one collected these bottles to “make a profit”, they were put out with all the other recycling.
According to The Beer Store’s web site:
“The program covers all wine, spirit and cooler containers over 100 ml sold through LCBO stores and Ontario winery retail stores, and beer containers over 100 ml sold outside The Beer Store system (this includes tetra, bag in box and case).”