Greek

Friday October 30, 2020

Editorial Cartoon by Graeme MacKay, The Hamilton Spectator – Friday October 9, 2020

Industry has known for decades that most plastic just can’t be recycled, says investigative journalist

There has been a decades-long push to get the public to recycle plastic, even though the people behind the idea knew most plastic is too costly and difficult to recycle, says one investigative journalist.

April 22, 2020

“They have known since the 1970s how difficult and almost impossible it is to recycle the vast majority of plastic,” said Laura Sullivan, a three-time Peabody Award-winning investigative correspondent for NPR News. 

Sullivan conducted an in-depth investigation into the recycling industry, and said the problem starts with trying to separate the recyclable material from the non-recyclable, which adds to the overall high cost of the process. 

“Then, most importantly, the plastic degrades every time you try to reuse it,” she told The Current’s Matt Galloway, adding that this means some recycled items cannot be recycled again.

“In one speech, a former industry insider said that it was unlikely that the vast majority of plastic would ever be economically viable to recycle.”

June 1, 2019

Earlier this week, Alberta Premier Jason Kenney announced that the province will work to become a major plastics recycling hub for western North America, as part of his government’s new natural gas strategy. The federal government has also announced its intention to ban six types of single-use plastic by the end of 2021, but insisted the move would support, not hinder, Alberta’s plans.

Announcing plans to reach zero plastic waste by 2030, the federal government’s website noted that “every year, Canadians throw away 3 million tonnes of plastic waste, only 9% of which is recycled, meaning the vast majority of plastics end up in landfills.”

Sullivan’s investigation looked at plastic industry records over the last 40 years. She spoke to industry insiders involved in promoting plastic recycling to the general public.

April 24, 2018

She said that “in the 1990s, plastic was under fire, that people didn’t like plastic, there was just too much trash and they needed to do something about it.”

“The obvious answer was to recycle it all, but as we know, they knew they couldn’t do that,” she said.

“It began this campaign to sort of subtly suggest and imply and even outright say, ‘You can recycle plastic,’ when they knew that wasn’t true.”

At the time, Sullivan said the industry was hopeful that technology would improve and recycling costs would become more manageable, but that didn’t happen.

She said her investigation looked at 12 of the most highly touted projects to increase the amount of plastic being recycled, and found that all of them “fell apart” within five to seven years.

“They were started with great fanfare, they got a ton of publicity … and then they died quietly.” (CBC) 

 

Tuesday May 8, 2012

By Graeme MacKay, The Hamilton Spectator, Tuesday May 8, 2012

Merkel readies for fight

Angela Merkel is under pressure to defeat the popular backlash against austerity to save her political skin and preserve Germany’s dominance in the eurozone.

Over the next four weeks, the German chancellor will face the fight of her political life on all fronts, domestic and European, at a moment when one slip could sink her government and tear down the European Union’s single currency.

Merkel must take the lead in trying to find an answer for the crisis in Greece, after three-fifths of Greek voters rejected EU austerity measures. Ger-man taxpayers have put $275 billion on the line to bail out countries such as Greece, and Germany’s patience is running out with countries that reject the prescribed economic medicine of debt reduction while continuing to demand the handouts.

To appease her highly taxed voters, who are worried that EU bailouts have breached Germany’s constitution, Merkel has made German economic aid conditional on all eurozone countries signing the “fiskalpakt”.

The treaty, signed by 25 EU countries, gives Brussels officials the right to block bud-gets that break spending rules which are enshrined in national constitutions, as is the case in Germany.

The measures, the chancellor assured German voters, would prevent eurozone countries going bust and leaving Ger-many holding bailout bills.

Merkel on Monday insisted Greece had to stick to the austerity program so resoundingly rejected by voters and that the reforms to the Greek economy were of “utmost importance”(Source: Vancouver Sun)

 

Wednesday February 22, 2012

By Graeme MacKay, The Hamilton Spectator, Wednesday February 22, 2012

McGuinty steers into troubled, unnavigated waters

When the legislature opens for business on Tuesday, Dalton McGuinty will confront one of the most troubled periods in provincial history.

With a $16-billion deficit, a debt of about $250 billion, a sputtering economy, a weak job market and the danger of a credit rating downgrade, the 40th Provincial Parliament couldn’t be sitting at a more important time.

The challenges facing Ontario would be daunting for a majority government. Throw a minority government into that volatile mix, with the Drummond report hanging over his head, and McGuinty’s task becomes herculean.

Analysts say McGuinty’s situation is unique. What voters conjured up last Oct. 6 last year, is not the minority of 1985 when Liberals and New Democrats signed an accord and took power from Conservative Frank Miller, giving government to David Peterson. Nor is it 1975 and 1977 when Bill Davis led two Conservative minorities with relative ease in the face of a divided opposition.

The political environment today is more fractured and more partisan, with the Opposition Progressive Conservatives and the NDP united in their determination to give the Liberals no breathing room.

Worse still, worries about the economy have left cranky Ontarians in no mood to cut the government any slack. McGuinty not only has to walk a political tightrope in the legislature, he has to make sure whatever tough medicine he prescribes to revive the economy doesn’t lead to social unrest.

With 53 seats to the PC’s 37 and 17 for the NDP, McGuinty may have a “strong minority,” but it is not enough to give him control of his own destiny. (Source: Ottawa Citizen)

 

Tuesday February 14, 2012

By Graeme MacKay, The Hamilton Spectator, Tuesday February 14, 2012

How Ontario’s ‘stimulus’ spending led to disaster

The fiscal mess in Ontario is now common knowledge across the country, thanks in part to a sensational report from the Conference Board of Canada demonstrating that unless the government slashes spending and/or raises taxes, health care and education will have to be decimated. The report was no surprise to people who tracked Premier Dalton McGuinty’s march into Keynesian fiscal stimulus spending.

If we can’t expect politicians to take the blame for following the Keynesian deficit-spending policies advocated by their economic advisors, shouldn’t we turn to the economic experts to get them to explain themselves? The same people who supported and advised the McGuinty Liberals — and the Obama Democrats, the Greek and Portuguese politicians, the French and Canadian governments — to run up spending to rescue the economy will spend the next decade telling governments how to get out of the mess they helped create.

Ontario’s current circumstances create a perfect opportunity to confront the economic establishment and lay blame for the fiscal disaster that is Ontario. Government spending has been soaring for years. It all looks good if growth rates stay strong. Where were the dire economic warnings through the last decade that the expansion in government activity cannot continue without hitting a wall?

A table on Ontario’s spending habits (above) captures the disconnect between the government and the people. While the personal income of the people dragged at 26% growth, government spending soared more than 60%.

On Wednesday, former TD Bank economist Don Drummond will deliver a set of tax and spending options to the McGuinty government, a road map on how the province can resolve its fiscal problems. (Source: Financial Post) 

 

Friday November 4, 2011

Friday November 4, 2011By Graeme MacKay, The Hamilton Spectator – Friday November 4, 2011

Greek Debt Crisis at a Critical Point

In the European currency war, Germany has the biggest arsenal and the strongest interest in forestalling the collapse of the euro. So why is it playing Hamlet: “To lead or not to lead?”

September 2011

To ponder and waver is not the old German way. Today, Germany is about as aggressive as a pussy cat, but pundits and politicos from the U.S. to Greece have blamed its dithering for rising market volatility and the mounting costs of the debt crisis. The 50% haircut on Greek bonds decreed at last week’s EU summit should have been imposed a year ago. Athens was insolvent even then. So it is always too little, too late. Whenever the Berlin-backed European Union rescue brigades and the European Central Bank close one breach, the markets attack on another flank. They will do so again, and the euro will remain in peril. Greece simply cannot grow enough to service its debt.

As the euro burns, Mrs. Merkel fiddles mixed messages. In Berlin the chancellor preaches generosity, dispatching German taxpayers’ funds to Athens. But in Brussels she stalls, demanding ever-more austerity and market reforms before relenting at the last minute. The euro rises, then drops again.

Mrs. Merkel’s latest volley—that any Greek referendum on the terms of a rescue package by the EU and the International Monetary Fund would decide whether Greece keeps the euro at all—sent markets roiling this week.

Ontario’s Greek Crisis

Yet the unraveling of Euroland would hit Germany the hardest. The neue deutschemark would shoot up, while the nouveau franc and the nuova lira would nosedive. And so would Germany’s exports, now an astounding 47% of its gross domestic product, two-thirds of which stay within the EU.

So why isn’t Mrs. Merkel rushing forward to grab Europe’s crown? The answer, of course, is history. (Source: Wall Street Journal)