garbage

Friday June 7, 2019

Editorial Cartoon by Graeme MacKay, The Hamilton Spectator – Friday June 7, 2019

Study sheds light on human consumption of microplastics

A study from the University of Victoria has for the first time compiled research on microplastics to try to estimate just how much people are consuming.

June 1, 2019

Microplastics are pieces of plastic that are just under five millimetres in diameter — or smaller than the size of a sesame seed — that come from the degradation of larger plastic products or the shedding of particles from water bottles, plastic packaging and synthetic clothes.

Garth Covernton, a PhD candidate at University of Victoria’s department of biology, said his team looked at 26 papers assessing the amount of microplastics found in individual food items.

May 2, 2018

The study found that a person’s average microplastic consumption — based on those food items previously analyzed — would likely be somewhere between 70,000 and 121,000 particles per year. While younger girls were at the lower end of the spectrum, adult men were at the high end.

People who consume a lot of bottled water could see that number jump by up to 100,000 particles per year.

The study analyzed the amount of microplastics found in fish, shellfish, sugars, salts, alcohol, water and air, which account for 15 per cent of Americans’ caloric intake.

But the other 85 per cent of what people consume, like beef, poultry, dairy and grains, has still not been examined.

March 6, 2015

Covernton compared the study to early understandings of cigarettes and tobacco: While the numbers they came up with did seem large, they don’t yet know exactly what level of consumption is dangerous.

“We’re at the point where we know microplastics at some dose could be harmful, but we’re not at the point where we can say whether what the average person is encountering is the equivalent of one cigarette in a lifetime, or that chronic exposure, like a pack a day.”

Covernton said the findings demonstrate more work needs to be done to understand how the tiny particles might affect human health. (CBC) 

 

Saturday June 1, 2019

Editorial Cartoon by Graeme MacKay, The Hamilton Spectator – Saturday June 1, 2019

It’s time we finally started to ‘get it’ on garbage and plastics

Let’s play a little weekend game of “What if …?”

April 29, 2019

This week, Malaysia became the second country in recent months to demand Canada take back garbage shipped under the pretense of it being recycling. This at the same time as the Government of the Philippines, dissatisfied with the pace of negotiations to return tonnes of garbage in that country, hired a ship to return the rotting trash to Canada.

Sensing a theme? Canada has an earned reputation as a bad actor on garbage. Our country leads the developed world in per-capita production of garbage. Successive governments at all levels have chosen not to deal with that reality, preferring to let the private sector manage our waste — including what happens to recyclables after we toss them in the blue box.

The private sector has done that in the way it always does: optimize earnings and profit. Most often that has meant paying someone to take our trash and recyclables. We have paid to dump garbage in the U.S. and developing world. We have sold recyclables to the highest bidder. And yes, private players have sold our garbage as recyclables.

January 16, 2019

The complaining countries don’t occupy any moral high ground here. In years past, they didn’t care much about what was being dumped on their shores as long as there was money to be made. It wasn’t uncommon for waste to be sorted into things that could be recycled and sold again, and trash that was simply dumped, often into the ocean.

That has changed. China, historically one of the biggest buyers, toughened regulations and disallowed much of what would previously have been welcome. Other countries, especially developing ones, became more concerned about environmental management and, therefore, less willing to sacrifice their national environments for profit.

April 24, 2018

The root of this problem is simple. Canada made the wrong choices on trash and recycling. Instead of investing in developing national infrastructure to deal with the challenges, we sold them to the highest offshore bidder. Now those bidders have shut down, and we need to retroactively build the infrastructure.

What if the international garbage boondoggle leads federal and provincial leaders to finally recognize this and develop policies that facilitate dealing holistically with our own trash? We can no longer dump our problems on other countries. It’s time Canada grew up and owned its own problems with waste. 

March 12, 2019

And speaking of growing up, what if the garbage scandal and the growing mountain of evidence about the threat of plastics pollution is a tipping point for us starting to take meaningful action on reducing single-use plastics?

We are taking baby steps. Plastic drinking straws are being replaced with paper ones. That and a handful of other modest measures are progress, but we’re barely scratching the surface. Check the supermarket or home store. We’re drowning in packaging.

What if public policy-makers finally started to put the onus on manufacturers to reduce plastics in packaging? What if there were incentives to do so or penalties for not doing so? What if consumers demanded change by doing things like buying the goods and leaving the packaging with the retailer?

Harsh, maybe even impolite? Maybe, but we really need to make significant headway on the plastics crisis. Right now, we’re just nibbling at the edges. (Hamilton Spectator Editorial) 

 

Monday April 29, 2019

Editorial Cartoon by Graeme MacKay, The Hamilton Spectator – Monday April 29, 2019

Canada working with Philippines for ‘timely resolution’ of waste issue

Canada on Wednesday expressed its commitment in collaborating with the Philippines to address the dumping of waste in the country.

The Canadian Embassy in Manila released a statement a day after President Rodrigo Duterte warned the North American country that he would be sailing to Canada to dump their trash back.

“I want a boat prepared. I’ll give a warning to Canada maybe next week that they better pull that thing out or I will set sail, there in Canada, I will dump their trash there,” Duterte said in Pampanga on Tuesday.

The Canadian Embassy said a joint technical working group composed of officials from both Canada and the Philippines has been looking into the issues surrounding the removal of the waste in the country “with a view to a timely resolution.”

“In 2016, Canada amended its regulations around hazardous waste shipments to prevent such events from happening again,” the Canadian Embassy said in a statement.

Canada vowed to work with the Philippines in ensuring that the waste shipment will be “processed in an environmentally responsible way.”

In 2017, Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said his country was committed to addressing the issue of waste from Canada that was shipped to the Philippines.

More than 100 container vans of garbage arrived in the Philippines between 2013 to 2014.

“I committed to him (Duterte) as much as I am committing to you that Canada is working hard to resolve the issue,” Trudeau said on the sidelines of the 2017 ASEAN Summit in Manila. (Source: PhilStar)

Tuesday March 12, 2019

Editorial Cartoon by Graeme MacKay, The Hamilton Spectator – Tuesday March 12, 2019

Ontario government ponders ban on single-use plastics

Ontario is weighing a ban on single-use plastics, which include bags, water bottles and straws.

April 24, 2018

Nearly a tonne of waste per person in Ontario is generated each year, and the rate at which that waste is diverted away from landfills — through recycling and composting, for example — has stalled around 30 per cent for the past 15 years.

The government recently released a discussion paper on reducing litter and waste,  and is asking the public and stakeholders for input on how to best address the problem. One question it asks is if a ban on single-use plastics would be effective in reducing plastic waste.

Environment Minister Rod Phillips said it’s an area in which the government is very open.

January 16, 2019

“We are essentially saying, ‘How would those work and how have they worked in other jurisdictions effectively?”‘ Phillips said in an interview. “Plastics is a priority from our government’s point of view, particularly as we talk about plastics in our waterways.”

It is estimated that almost 10,000 tonnes of plastic debris enter the Great Lakes each year, the discussion paper says. Ontario’s Blue Box recycling program recovers only about 28 per cent of all plastic packaging in the province.

Ontario is also mulling a deposit return system for plastic bottles and other containers, as is used in some other provinces.

March 6, 2015

Keith Brooks, programs director at Environmental Defence, said a lot of single-use plastics are unnecessary, pointing to straws and cutlery.

“I think that a ban on some single-use plastics makes a lot of sense,” he said. “I think it’s a good conversation to have.”

But by asking such a broad question, the answer may be no, Brooks cautioned, saying he didn’t think any jurisdiction has banned all single-use plastics.

“There’s some single-use plastics that are probably going to continue to be used…for food safety reasons and things like that,” he said, though he would push for them to be standardized and recyclable. (Source: CBC) 

 

Saturday July 21, 2018

Editorial Cartoon by Graeme MacKay, The Hamilton Spectator – Saturday July 21, 2018

These are dark days for recycling and composting in Hamilton

If you’re among the thousands of citizens who try to do the right things about recycling and waste diversion, these are not good times.

It’s a discouraging double-whammy.

May 2, 2018

Part one happened early this year. After years of imploring citizens to put items like coffee cup lids, Styrofoam and black plastic in the recycling box, city officials had to reverse that. It was, in the words of city recycling manager Emil Prpic, a “market-driven” eco-dilemma. The problem is, virtually no one wanted to buy those recycled goods. In January, China, which was the giant in the buying market, cracked down on imported plastics. It applied new more stringent purity standards that ruled out most of our plastics.

There must be more buyers than China? Yes. But China has been voracious, consuming more than half the world’s recyclables. There isn’t adequate infrastructure yet to make up for that lost capacity.

So in Hamilton, and many other municipalities, recyclables have to be stored or handled by a third party. Tragically, some of this stuff is ending up in our landfills.

That was bad enough, but then more recently the second whammy hit. The city’s composting plant on Burlington Street East was stinking. It has been odiferous for a long time, but recently the problem has been getting worse. Last month, responding to growing citizen complaints, the plant was closed until a solution can be found.

April 24, 2018

So that food and organic waste you have been separating? It’s going into our only landfill site in Glanbrook. Something like 660 tonnes — daily.

So no food waste recycling. Limited plastics recycling, with the most common types — so-called low grade plastics — being not recyclable because no one wants them. If they’re mixed in with other, legitimate recycling, they contaminate them and have to be sorted by hand otherwise the entire load is useless.

Just to add insult to injury, we’re living under a new government that doesn’t appear to believe the environment matters at all, and next door to a superpower that is losing its mind and racing backwards on environmental protection. (Source: Hamilton Spectator) 

 

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