This article was originally published on LinkedIn on February 14, 2025.
As it stands, Canada’s waste management system doesn’t work, or at least, no where near as well as it should. A shared responsibility between our federal, provincial, and territorial governments, and consumers – with municipalities in charge of collection, diversion, and disposal – is needed. These processes are bogged down in red tape, aging, and limited infrastructure, and they are designed for much lower volumes of waste.
And yet, consumers value recycling. We, at NOVA Chemicals, recently surveyed 1,000 consumers in Canada and the US to find out their views on sustainable packaging. One of the most promising things we discovered is that 71% of respondents say they are recycling as much as possible. Not only that, but they are willing to take additional steps to ensure the recyclability of flexible plastic.
And yet ease of recycling varies by jurisdiction – for example, rural areas can lack infrastructure or curbside pickup options that exist in cities, which goes back to the point that waste management is a multi-faceted challenge. Managing plastics post-use has troubled industry, governments, and consumers for decades due in part to our existing model. To put it bluntly: If we want to see actual impacts in our lifetime, it’s imperative that we remove the silos and begin to work together on building an effective circular economy.
Designed properly and with the right infrastructure in place, plastic is an invaluable reusable
resource. Through methods like mechanical recycling, we can potentially create products with a smaller carbon footprint than virgin production, fuel a circular economy, and create new investment and employment streams, all while drastically reducing the amount of waste that ends up in our landfills.
The framework used in British Columbia has proven to be incredibly effective. British Columbia leads the country in what is collected and how it is recycled. According to reporting by Recycle BC, in 2022, 98% of plastic collected through their program was sent to the recycling end market where it is made into new packaging or products. If we were to replicate this across the country, with consistent labeling standards and requirements, paired with improved consumer awareness, this alone could be a game changer for our country’s waste reduction efforts.
Read the full article from SVP of Innovation and Sustainability, Rocky Vermani, here.
Rocky Vermani is the Senior Vice President, Innovation and Sustainability, responsible for building out NOVA Chemicals’ sustainability initiative roadmaps and advocating for strong policy to continue unlocking leading-edge solutions for a sustainable future.