British Columbia residents recently gained access to the Return-It Express program, through which they can bag their containers and drop them off at one of 60 depots. | Courtesy of Encorp Pacific
The majority of beverage containers in British Columbia had their deposit values increase from 5 cents to 10 cents at the start of this month, creating more consistency in the provincial redemption program.
Packaging EPR is already in place in British Columbia, Manitoba, Ontario, Saskatchewan and Quebec. | One Photo / Shutterstock
New Brunswick will require that manufacturers pay for the end-of-life collection and processing of the packaging materials they produce.
London, Ontario has a goal of 60% waste diversion by the end of 2022. | Wei Seah/Shutterstock
London, Ontario approved a grant for a Hefty EnergyBag program, making it the first Canadian city to embrace the program for collecting hard-to-recycle plastics.
A perfect storm of industry pressures, including declines in commodity prices and rises in freight costs, led a Canadian waste and recycling firm to shutter this week.
Experts say a deposit system for non-alcoholic beverage containers would complement a Canadian province’s curbside recycling system, by cutting costs and increasing the volume of material recycled each year.
Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said his government will ban a number of single-use plastic products and will support establishing extended producer responsibility for plastic items.
Federal legislation proposed in Canada requires consumer packaging to be made from a short list of recyclable materials. The guidelines allow only the most common recyclables, including just two plastic resins.
A recycling expert has offered up criticisms of British Columbia’s extended producer responsibility system for printed paper and packaging.
Still from a Waste Robotics demonstration video.
This story has been updated.
The Canadian government will invest in a company that’s developing artificial intelligence machinery to separate materials at recycling facilities.