On November 28th, 2024 CBC News published “Recycling is failing as a way to reduce plastic. Here’s why“, an article relating to the Busan Plastic’s Treaty negotiation. While the article raises some valid points, it also raised concerns among RCBC’s Board and Staff over aspects of the premise and how overgeneralizing recycling rates creates confusion and mistrust about recycling programs that operate with higher rates of success, notably curbside recycling in BC. Through RCBC’s Information Services program, we hear often from British Columbians how this kind of messaging erodes public trust and confidence in our recycling systems. RCBC’s response to the article can be found below.
December 4, 2024
Mr. Anand Ram
Producer, The National
CBC News
Re: “Recycling is failing as a way to reduce plastic. Here’s why”, November 28, 2024 – CBC
The Recycling Council of BC (RCBC) is a not-for-profit organization dedicated to advancing the Circular Economy in BC. Our membership is comprised of governments, businesses, not-for-profits and individuals. We are currently in our 50th year of operations.
Through our public information services program, we interact with tens of thousands of British Columbians every year and field over 250,000 inquiries annually by phone, email, live chat and text, and through our online Recyclepedia search tool and mobile app.
Because we talk to British Columbians every day, we’re in a unique position to understand the questions and concerns they have about recycling, and the impact articles like yours have on the public trust and participation in recycling programs.
It’s important to understand that the goal of recycling is not necessarily to reduce overall plastic consumption, but to decrease reliance on virgin plastic production by using post-consumer recycled plastic in new products. Plastic waste reduction starts with preventing waste at the source. It is crucial that we focus on actions to reduce, reuse, and then eventually recycle the plastics that we can’t avoid.
You report that “only nine per cent of the world’s plastic has ever been recycled”. While this may be technically true, it does a disservice to regional and local plastic recycling systems. This statistic is not reflective of the experience in British Columbia, where, in 2023, the extended producer responsibility program for residential packaging and printed paper saw a recovery rate for plastics of 43%,of which 99.6% was recycled within British Columbia. Hard plastics, like yogurt tubs, are collected at a rate of 56 percent and flexible plastics like chip bags and multi-laminate pouches at a rate of 20 percent. Target recovery rates for these materials are much higher, and work towards achieving them includes infrastructure improvements, public participation, and adding new collection methods, but it is already well above nine percent.
B.C.’s provincial extended producer responsibility programs provide a consistent and verifiable end of life management system for plastics that already exist. For example, here in BC, local processor Merlin Plastics recycles 99 percent of the plastics collected through the Recycle BC program, and information about recovery rates and end markets is provided in publicly available annual reports. Similar programs exist or are in development in provinces across Canada.
The inference from your article that the public is taking away is that only nine percent of plastics collected through local residential recycling programs is actually recycled. The result is erosion of public trust in programs that work. We know from countless conversations with residents on the BC Recycling Hotline, which RCBC has now operated for over 30 years, that they are skeptical that the plastic items they put in their blue bins are actually recycled, and much of the time these concerns are prompted by news articles and opinion pieces that fail to distinguish between plastics collected through programs like the one operated by Recycle BC, and those in different systems in other parts of the country or abroad. When people hear that only a small percentage of plastics are recycled, the issue is further exacerbated by discouraging their participation – even in programs that work. This can increase the amount of plastic sent to landfill, incineration, or that is mismanaged and enters the environment.
Ultimately while recycling is an important tool, the only way to reduce plastics and plastic waste is to produce less of it in the first place. We only recycle, or fail to recycle, the plastic we already have. There are ongoing efforts across the world to accelerate the transition to a Circular Economy – a system in which resources are kept in use through actions like reuse, repair, maintenance, remanufacture, recycling, and composting. There are countless organizations both local and global working to make this a reality, including the Ellen MacArthur Foundation, a global Plastics Pact network, and ourselves at the Recycling Council of BC.
The article raises valid points about the growth of global plastics supply and the hazards of mismanaged plastics entering the environment, and in highlighting that there is no single solution to the problem of plastic pollution. As per the broadly accepted waste hierarchy, reducing the amount of plastic that needs to be managed in the first place is the most impactful step that we can take, in the same way that reduction is the first and best step for waste prevention for any material. We can and should prioritize reduction – without misleading the public into believing that the plastics that they already have and put out for collection in blue bin programs, or drop off at depots, are not being recycled.
Our Executive Director, Christoph Schultz, is available to discuss this with you and provide any additional information you may need about the success of plastic (and other) recycling programs in British Columbia. Please reach him at christoph@rcbc.ca.
Sincerely,
Louise Schwarz
Acting Board Chair
Recycling Council of B.C.
