With wealth comes waste: Alberta to target environmental waste with new legislation
Global News
The Alberta government will be introducing the Environmental Protection and Enhancement Amendment Act in an effort to curb waste within the province.
With Albertans sending 1,034 kilograms of waste per person to landfills annually — a number higher than any other Canadian jurisdiction, according to Alberta government data — it’s no wonder the province is looking to put a stop to all the waste.
On Monday, the government announced that new legislation will be brought forward, and if passed, the Environmental Protection and Enhancement Amendment Act would set the foundation for the provincial government to implement an extended producer responsibility (EPR) framework next year.
“We have historically been the wealthiest province in the country, and as a result, with wealth tends to come waste,” said Christina Seidel, executive director of the Recycling Council of Alberta.
“We are high consumers because we’ve been wealthy, and as a result, we create a lot of waste.
The national average of waste produced per person is 710 kilograms per year, the province said.
Essentially, the EPR framework would create a provincial system for managing single-use plastics, packaging, paper products and hazardous and special products like household pesticides and solvents.
According to a provincial government news release, it would shift the physical and financial role of collecting, sorting, processing and recycling waste to the industries that produce products instead of local governments and taxpayers.
“Basically if you’re a producer — whoever brings the product into the province — then you have to make sure that a certain percentage of that material gets properly handled, ie. recycled, at the end of its life,” Seidel explained.
