Note: Today's Blog and stats are only about Canada. Your country might do a better job recycling plastics than we do.
I have what is called an Elevator Pitch to describe my sustainable products and Kraft Board Packaging. It is easy for me to deliver because I am passionate about my work.
I provide products that will get rid of the need for these plastic containers:
- liquid hand soap
- dish soap
- shampoo
- conditioner
- body wash
- deodorant container (which is not recyclable)
- lip balm container (which is not recyclable)
The idea of a 30 second pitch
Usually people are excited and ask more questions about how some items work. However, once in a while I have a person who shuts me down immediately by saying (usually quite loudly for some reason) "This doesn't matter, I recycle!". In public I smile and say "that's good", I get the social cue that you aren't interested in my products and have no interest in trying something new right now. In private I tell people the truth - no you don't recycle.
I'm sorry. I hate to be the one to break this to you but unless you work in a recycling plant you DO NOT recycle. You put plastic items into a container and take that to the curb. That is waste sorting.
Only 9% of Canada's plastic in general gets recycled. The truth is that only 30% of items put into the blue box in Canada get recycled. That isn't your fault, and it isn't my fault. I'm not making this up, it has been studied for years and tested in 2019 by CBC's Marketplace. It is just the plain old, honest truth. (see references below) Why not stop using products in plastic containers to begin with?
This is why what you put into the blue box is probably not actually recycled:
1) Bottlenecks
Canada only has 37 recycling plants. They cannot keep up with the supply of plastic.
2) Poor Sorting
Plastics of different types, plastics that can't be recycled, plastics not required by industry right now ... they all sit in the same unsorted pile waiting for recycling. 70% of the time the pile is sent to landfill or incineration.
3) Dirty Items
Similar problem as poor sorting, they sit in a pile. 70% of the time just sent to landfill or incineration.
4) Non Recyclable Plastic (deodorant and lip balm tubes for example)
These get put in blue boxes often. You can't recycle every plastic container.
5) Costs - The Canadian Plastics Industry makes more money creating and selling first time plastic, called virgin resin. "The virgin resin industry has a very high international trade exposure,
with 77 percent of its output exported, and 71 percent of the domestic resin demand fulfilled through
imports."
Bye, Bye, I'm probably headed to landfill!
References:
The Canadian plastics economy is mostly linear, with an estimated nine percent of plastic waste recycled, four percent incinerated with energy recovery, 86 percent landfilled
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