Canadian Federal Politics Thread v5

[Aarongavey]

Originally Posted by Azure

Instead of banning single use plastics, perhaps we should find a way to recycle plastic better, develop more environmentally friendly plastic products, and encourage alternative wood / paper based products to replace plastic. Especially for items such as packaging.

But no, lets instead shame companies for not using paper straws.

I'd imagine a lot of our plastic pollution comes from all the junk we ship in from overseas.

What would recycling a product made from oil do for GHG's? It is estimated that on its current trajectory, plastics will make up 20% of world oil demand by 2050. 16% of all plastics are currently recycled, the rest primarily burned. So you get the GHG's coming and going with this product. Organisms in the ocean act as carbon sinks but plastic garbage in the ocean significantly impedes their ability to reproduce and thus reduces their efficacy as a carbon sink. But yes, the issue is clearly about shaming companies to use plastic straws.

[Fuzz]

Originally Posted by Azure

Do landfills not track the amount of plastic waste?

I mean we know we're sending all our way to 3rd world countries, so why can't they track the amounts?

No, single use plastics go in mixed garbage, no one is sorting it out for plastic spoons.

[Azure]

No, the issue is we keep sending all our plastic waste to other countries and have terrible recycling policies in general.

But hey, at least we use paper straws so plastic problem solved.

I would say we should look at successful European models when it comes to recycling and what not, but we refuse to do that for health care, which is far more costly, so I'd imagine it won't happen with recycling either.

[Roughneck]

So should we ban single use plastics like Europe did?

[Fuzz]

Originally Posted by Azure

No, the issue is we keep sending all our plastic waste to other countries and have terrible recycling policies in general.

But hey, at least we use paper straws so plastic problem solved.

I would say we should look at successful European models when it comes to recycling and what not, but we refuse to do that for health care, which is far more costly, so I'd imagine it won't happen with recycling either.

I think you are missing the part where the ban on single use plastics aren't the type that get sent off to be recycled. Plastic bags might be the exception. The other stuff like straws, cutlery etc are not recyclable and go with mixed trash that is not tracked at all, so there is no metric to report on that.

[BlackArcher101]

Honestly, if they want to make a bigger impact on plastics and waste, they should start regulating product packaging. The massive plastic clamshells you get for things like one SD card.... it's ridiculous. Costco I'm looking at you! Just the amount of extra packaging a company does to attract you to it, or just for looks, is crazy.

[Aarongavey]

Originally Posted by Azure

No, the issue is we keep sending all our plastic waste to other countries and have terrible recycling policies in general.

But hey, at least we use paper straws so plastic problem solved.

I would say we should look at successful European models when it comes to recycling and what not, but we refuse to do that for health care, which is far more costly, so I'd imagine it won't happen with recycling either.

Production of single use plastics from manufacturing ethylene has the equivalent GHG emissions of 45 million passenger vehicles a year. Recyling the product that comes at the backend of that manufacturing does not do much in terms of reducing GHG's. Canada had 35.7 million passenger vehicles in 2018. But it is all about paper straws.

[CliffFletcher]

Originally Posted by BlackArcher101

Honestly, if they want to make a bigger impact on plastics and waste, they should start regulating product packaging. The massive plastic clamshells you get for things like one SD card.... it's ridiculous. Costco I'm looking at you! Just the amount of extra packaging a company does to attract you to it, or just for looks, is crazy.

Or the boxes of snacks that contain 60 plastic packages with two snacks each.

[opendoor]

Originally Posted by Azure

I would say we should look at successful European models when it comes to recycling and what not, but we refuse to do that for health care, which is far more costly, so I'd imagine it won't happen with recycling either.

So ban single-use plastics and make companies responsible for the costs of recycling/disposal of their packaging? Great idea!

[Fuzz]

Originally Posted by BlackArcher101

Honestly, if they want to make a bigger impact on plastics and waste, they should start regulating product packaging. The massive plastic clamshells you get for things like one SD card.... it's ridiculous. Costco I'm looking at you! Just the amount of extra packaging a company does to attract you to it, or just for looks, is crazy.

They do that to reduce theft, but ya, they could use a big piece of cardboard or something. Plastic packaging sucks and is pretty unnecessary most of the time.

[speede5]

Originally Posted by BlackArcher101

Honestly, if they want to make a bigger impact on plastics and waste, they should start regulating product packaging. The massive plastic clamshells you get for things like one SD card.... it's ridiculous. Costco I'm looking at you! Just the amount of extra packaging a company does to attract you to it, or just for looks, is crazy.

Nothing worse than having to cut through all those hard plastic casings to dig out your product.

I think this is also for theft prevention and ease of handling. I agree its a nuisance but as a retailer how would you want to handle $80 micro sd cards?

Maybe cardboard backer with a vacuum sealed plastic layer on top?

[speede5]

lol, great minds think alike?

[Azure]

Originally Posted by opendoor

So ban single-use plastics and make companies responsible for the costs of recycling/disposal of their packaging? Great idea!

Again, I'm not arguing against banning single use plastics.

I'm arguing that without proper plastic recycling programs we are not solving anything.

[opendoor]

Originally Posted by Azure

Again, I'm not arguing against banning single use plastics.

I'm arguing that without proper plastic recycling programs we are not solving anything.

The problem is a lot of the plastic is basically unrecyclable, at least in any way that's viable economically, at this point. So in light of that, reducing its use (through bans of single-use items and through financial incentives/disincentives for companies to move away from it) is much more effective, and that's the approach Europe has taken.

If you want to increase the recycling rate of plastic, then we need to basically force companies to start using the more recyclable types of plastic, or move away from it all together when it's not 100% necessary.

[Azure]

Originally Posted by Aarongavey

Production of single use plastics from manufacturing ethylene has the equivalent GHG emissions of 45 million passenger vehicles a year. Recyling the product that comes at the backend of that manufacturing does not do much in terms of reducing GHG's. Canada had 35.7 million passenger vehicles in 2018. But it is all about paper straws.

Who said anything about recycling single use plastics? I am talking about recycling plastic in general, which is a massive problem.

We send our waste to 3rd world countries and pat ourselves on the back for banning plastic straws.

Following successful European models for plastic waste reduction requires us to actually have a recycling program as well, not just a ban on single use products. Must be hard to understand.

[BlackArcher101]

Originally Posted by speede5

Nothing worse than having to cut through all those hard plastic casings to dig out your product.

I think this is also for theft prevention and ease of handling. I agree its a nuisance but as a retailer how would you want to handle $80 micro sd cards?

Maybe cardboard backer with a vacuum sealed plastic layer on top?

I would treat them like games, pull a cardboard tag off the shelf, go to a desk to pay for it where they give it to you.

[Azure]

Originally Posted by opendoor

The problem is a lot of the plastic is basically unrecyclable, at least in any way that's viable economically, at this point. So in light of that, reducing its use (through bans of single-use items and through financial incentives/disincentives for companies to move away from it) is much more effective, and that's the approach Europe has taken.

If you want to increase the recycling rate of plastic, then we need to basically force companies to start using the more recyclable types of plastic, or move away from it all together when it's not 100% necessary.

We should call it waste management then, and the Swedish model is a lot more successful than the Canadian 'send it all to Africa' model.

Burning it for energy is more environmentally friendly than sending to landfills.

[BlackArcher101]

Originally Posted by Azure

We should call it waste management then, and the Swedish model is a lot more successful than the Canadian 'send it all to Africa' model.

Burning it for energy is more environmentally friendly than sending to landfills.

Japan does the same and their packaging waste it magnitudes worse than hours. Think individual fruits having their own wrapping. But they sort into burnable/non burnable and the incineration plants have really good scrubbing, little emissions.

[Aarongavey]

Originally Posted by Azure

We should call it waste management then, and the Swedish model is a lot more successful than the Canadian 'send it all to Africa' model.

Burning it for energy is more environmentally friendly than sending to landfills.

both burning and landfills are brutal for the environment. What we should be trying to do is get rid of as much plastic use as possible. Thus the paper straws, amongst other things.

[Harry Lime]

If they can't track the recycling or impact on the environment for single use plastics, how did they even come up with the need for this policy? If they did make the decision based on some kind of metric, then it should be trackable to see the impact of the policy over a yearly course.