Home › Policy Articles: Environment & Climate: Recycling

As Canada’s economy and urban populations grow, waste from households and industrial, commercial, and institutional (ICI) sources have grown at a rate that too often outpaces municipal and provincial efforts to deal with it.

According to Pierre Desrochers, some industrial waste recycling advocates believe in creating linkages between industries, where one firm’s waste becomes the valuable input of another.

Marla Kelleher, Janet Robins, John Dixie discuss the implementation of user fees for waste removal services. This concept has been put into use in 200 communities in Canada and 6000 in the US. The authors argue that moving the cost of the service out of property tax bills and making costs visible will increase the consciousness of the consumers and encourage them to decrease the amount of waste they produce.

This report by Sally Walker, Ronald Colman, Jeffrey Wilson, Anne Monette and Gay Harley looks at the solid waste disposal system in Nova Scotia. As the authors explain, Nova Scotia has been able to reduce the amount of solid waste they produce by 50% through a superior sold waste system that included recycling incentives, composting and more efficient land fills. Though the program appears to have been costly the authors argue that due to the many ways in which the program saves money on services it is may be beneficial for both the environment and the provincial budget.

In this article Pierre Desrochers argues against the historical belief that the profit driven economy is to blame for the industrial contribution to the breakdown of the environment.