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How confusion and inconvenience are filling B.C. landfills with recyclable plastics | Only 45 per cent of plastic packaging residents use is recovered to be recycled (www.cbc.ca)

submitted 3 days ago by otters_raft@lemmy.ca to c/britishcolumbia@lemmy.ca

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Excerpt:

The organization behind B.C.'s recycling system wants residents to do more to keep plastics from going to landfills or ending up as litter — as only 45 per cent of plastic packaging used by residents is recovered for recycling.

"There's been a lot of hesitancy around recycling, but our model proves that you can have a system that responsibly manages and recycles these plastics," said Sam Baker, executive director of Recycle B.C.

Baker says if residents put plastic packaging in the right place, it will stay out of landfills and ultimately get made into new products.

"If residents are going to do the work to put that material in the bin or take to the depot, we're going to do our job to make sure that gets recycled."

In 2024, residents either put into their blue boxes or took to depots 31,362 tonnes of plastic packaging — from Ziploc bags to yogurt containers — of which 98 per cent was recycled, according to Recycle B.C.'s latest annual report.

B.C.'s not-for-profit system, introduced 10 years ago, was the first in North America to require producers to pay for the packaging and paper they create to be recycled, lifting the burden from local governments.

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[–] FreeBooteR69@lemmy.ca 11 points 2 days ago

If you want people to put stuff in their blue bins (i mean we do this already), make it super easy to identify what goes in and what doesn't. It must be obvious to even a monkey. Also, if people have to go out of their way, like travel to a facility themselves, you will get no adoption. People are already over taxed with shit to do, they don't need more dumped on their plate. It must be up to government to legislate corporations make their products and packaging recyclable, and make clear on the packaging what must be done with it after it is used. It has to be super obvious what must be done with waste and made super simple and unburdensome. If i haven't made it clear, make it simple, make it for stupid. Otherwise you just won't get adoption.

[–] Levi@lemmy.ca 7 points 3 days ago (2 children)

Its hard to care about recycling when global warming is probably going to kill us instead. That and it sounded like a lot of the recycling companies actually just dump it in third world country landfills... I still do it, but I get why some people don't care.

[–] snoons@lemmy.ca 4 points 3 days ago (1 children)

Yeah, only about 30% of all plastics placed in recycling are ever actually recycled iirc. The rest are shipped off to the Philippines to be placed in a derelict barge for a few decades.

...Can't find the actual article(s) to cite tho.

[–] kfet@fosstodon.org 7 points 3 days ago (1 children)

@snoons I’ve seen before reports like that, however this atricle quotes “The good news is that 98 per cent of residential plastic packaging that's placed in blue boxes in B.C. is recycled.”. Quite a discrepancy, I wonder what’s the real number.

[–] kfet@fosstodon.org 5 points 3 days ago (1 children)

@snoons Here’s the CBC report, but it’s not really a scientific number, and is quite old.

https://www.cbc.ca/news/science/marketplace-recycling-trackers-b-c-blue-box-1.5299176

[–] snoons@lemmy.ca 3 points 2 days ago

Thanks very much!

[–] Pyr_Pressure@lemmy.ca 2 points 2 days ago

I think of it more in the light that plastics will probably be around for far longer than we will be so at least if I recycle it will make a cleaner planet for the animals that survive whatever else the earth throws at them.

[–] asg101@lemmy.ca 4 points 2 days ago

I put every piece of plastic I get into the recycling, except for the Mylar/composite crap. Let them figure it out. If it can't be recycled, it should not be allowed into the country.

[–] buzz86us@lemmy.world 3 points 2 days ago

Ugh why can we not switch to Hemp based plastics for applications such as food packaging.