Plastics: SPEC's Ten Percent Solution

By Helen Spiegelman

SPEC is offering a simple and effective tool that provincial governments can use to deal with one of the most intractable materials in municipal waste: plastic packaging.

The proposal: a provincial regulation requiring a minimum 10% recycled content in plastic containers that aren't used for food - primarily HDPE containers used for detergent, bleach, and other household chemicals.

Why is this so important? A mere 10% recycled content, in just these containers, will create a stable demand for those 4 litre HDPE milk jugs that are now an established part of almost all community recycling programs in our province.

BC consumers buy 70 million milk jugs a year. These containers are not included in the deposit system so recycling is the responsibility of local communities. So far, the markets for this plastic have been relatively strong - in part because of rumours that some U.S. states were about to require recycled content use, and recyclers were tooling up to meet this threat!

However, recycled content requirements in the USA did not materialize and the plastic industry has been shutting down its recycling operations - and at the same time making plans to ramp up production of "virgin" HDPE!

It's only a matter of time before the ripple effect of these developments reaches our local plastic markets. When the price of "off spec" virgin HDPE undercuts the price of recycled HDPE, recyclers won't be able to compete. How will you explain to your residents that you can't accept milk jugs for recycling?

It's the same scenario communities faced in the early 1990s, when paper mills refused to buy recycled newspapers - tonnes of paper collected from well-intentioned citizens ended up in landfills.

In response, many states required newspaper publishers to use recycled-content paper, which caused their suppliers (the paper mills) to re-tool for recycling, which in turn created a domestic demand for the recycled paper being collected in local communities.

SPEC wants to trigger a similar chain of events for plastic. We hope more BC communities will join SCRAPS and the Southern Gulf Islands Recycling Coalition in sending letters to our Minister of Environment (cc. to SPEC) calling for British Columbia to enact a recycled content regulation - ideally harmonized with other provinces to create a Canadian Industry Standard.

Contact Helen Spiegelman: ph (604) 731-8464, fax (604) 731-8463, e-mail helens@axionet.com.

Source: CWMA News (summer 1999) vol. 4 iss. 2.

Top | Composting & Recycling | Resources | Home