We can finally admit that plastic recycling has been a sham all along

National Post, 16 October 2020

After generations of governments at all levels promoting recycling with salvific zeal, we now have the confession: recycling of plastics has mostly been a crock.

A long-running fraud is coming to an end. Whether it leads to better public policy remains to be seen, but at least now the official nonsense about Canada’s recycling measures need no longer be peddled.

For a few generations now, Canada’s recycling policy has been grounded in the maxim that one man’s trash is another man’s treasure. That’s a fine bit of folk wisdom for holding a garage sale or rummaging around a flea market, but as policy it runs into trouble if garbage is just garbage that nobody wants.

After generations of governments at all levels promoting recycling with salvific zeal, we now have the confession: recycling of plastics has mostly been a crock. Those who wished to know knew long ago. I did, but then we economists tend to be the sort who — what’s the phrase? — follow the science. We are not dumbfounded if there are unintended consequences when government regulation mandates that rubbish has resale value.

The federal government announced this month that, at the end of next year, it will be illegal to use plastic grocery bags, straws and take-out containers. Which means that if, as I do, you deploy “single-use” grocery bags for another use as garbage bags, or take-out containers for leftovers, you will have to buy plastic garbage bags and plastic food containers. The Ziploc people will be pleased.

Given that Styrofoam cartons will also be banned, restaurateurs will have to find alternative packaging for takeout — just a trifling matter pandemic-wise. If only the print media were not in such poor shape, we could return to the handy practice of wrapping fish and chips in newsprint. Lamb vindaloo may prove a greater challenge.

Continue reading at the National Post.