With Albertans sending 1,034 kilograms of waste per person to landfills annually — a number higher than any other Canadian jurisdiction, according to Alberta government data — it’s no wonder the province is looking to put a stop to all the waste.
On Monday, the government announced that new legislation will be brought forward, and if passed, the Environmental Protection and Enhancement Amendment Act would set the foundation for the provincial government to implement an extended producer responsibility (EPR) framework next year.
“We have historically been the wealthiest province in the country, and as a result, with wealth tends to come waste,” said Christina Seidel, executive director of the Recycling Council of Alberta.
“We are high consumers because we’ve been wealthy, and as a result, we create a lot of waste.
“We’re the only province that produces more than one tonne per person per year of garbage and that is something that we need to really deal with.”
The national average of waste produced per person is 710 kilograms per year, the province said.
Essentially, the EPR framework would create a provincial system for managing single-use plastics, packaging, paper products and hazardous and special products like household pesticides and solvents.
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According to a provincial government news release, it would shift the physical and financial role of collecting, sorting, processing and recycling waste to the industries that produce products instead of local governments and taxpayers.
“Basically if you’re a producer — whoever brings the product into the province — then you have to make sure that a certain percentage of that material gets properly handled, ie. recycled, at the end of its life,” Seidel explained.
The move would also increase recycling as a whole in Alberta, which Seidel says is good news all around. The increase would contribute roughly $1.4 billion to the economy and support about 13,300 jobs, Seidel said.
“Right now, and for too long, municipalities and taxpayers have been shouldering the burden of collecting, sorting, processing and recycling waste,” said Minister of Environment and Parks Jason Nixon.
According to a news release, if passed, EPR would help Alberta transition to a plastics circular economy and achieve one of the goals outlined in the Natural Gas Vision and Strategy for Alberta to become a North American centre of excellence for plastics diversion and recycling by 2030.
The public is invited to provide comments and additional input to help inform Alberta’s EPR framework by Dec. 15.
— With files from Morgan Black, Global News
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