Package industry? F for recycling
Sellers of everything from food to electronics demand safe, attractive and cheap packaging from suppliers. Packaging and marketing worlds cooperate to provide this, essentially oblivious to downstream recycling. There are few carrot or stick incentives to do otherwise.
An extreme example is a hard styrene blister pack to encase an item worth less than a dollar. And how about trying to buy spinach that doesn’t come in a rigid plastic container?
A prominent B.C. dairy products supplier recently changed the venerable cardboard and wax container to add a plastic pour spout. Why? The old design worked fine; the new one offers minimal benefit. This new combination makes recycling so expensive you might as well bury it in a landfill.
Some venturous wholesalers and retailers have braved financial armageddon to insist on biodegradable packaging. Sadly, our major Canadian players have not.
So our packaging waste builds up with nowhere to go. Local municipalities seem more keen on restricting what they will handle. They have even contemplated hiring inspectors to ensure compliance. This is folly on all sides starting with the packaging and retail industries and extends to their government apologists; hence the F-minus grade.
Governments could create a recycling score with the highest score given to biodegradable or highly recyclable monolithic packaging. For example, aluminum cans are made of over 95% pure aluminum and alloyed with compatible metals. These are fairly easy to recycle. In contrast, glass bottles are made of highly variable compositions. Basically you can only crush them and use them as additives in asphalt or cement, or simply landfill.
A waxed paper milk carton would score fairly well until you add the plastic pour spout. You go from near monolithic to complex.
The recycling score could be mandated on all packaging like many other requirements such as “Nutrition Facts” on food labels. Then consumers could make an informed choice and drive the packaging industry to change.
The carrot goes to the best packagers and the worst get their financial bottoms spanked very red. No need for draconian government legislation. Steve Burke West Kelowna