Climate Change Series Hears The “Dirty Little Secret” About Recycling

Jeff Green | Feb 10, 2021

Dr. Myra Hird, a professor in the School of Environmental Studies at Queen’s University, where she runs a multi-disciplinary program called Wasteflow, does not mince words when it comes to municipal recycling programs.

Quoting a colleague, she called recycling programs “'busy work' that takes our time and energy away from addressing the upstream issues, the production of waste.”

In a Zoom presentation as part of the Kingston 350 Addressing Climate Change on Monday night (February 8th), she talked about the specifics of municipal recycling programs in the local region and elsewhere, and also talked, in more general terms, about the impact of the global economy, on the viability of the planet to support human and other life forms.

“Every type of waste management creates its own waste,” she said. “The real solution is reduction, but it is an unpopular solution because our very identity, as economic actors, is based on a Neo-Liberal capitalist economy that is entirely built on ever increasing production and consumption.”

At the beginning of her talk, she pointed out, that based on the most recent information, from 2017, Canada is the highest per capita producer of municipal waste in the world.

But putting that in perspective, she said that municipal waste represents only 2% of the waste produced in Canada. Oil sands tailings, mine tailings and mine waste, represent almost 2/3 of all the waste produced in Canada,and manufacturing and agriculture are major producers as well.

“And a lot of our waste is manufacturing, waste that has been exported to us. 59% of municipal waste is packaging,” she said.

As far as municipal recycling programs are concerned, she had nothing positive to say.

On the local scene, she pointed out that KARC (Kingston Area Recycles), which handles recycling for Central and South Frontenac as well as the City of Kingston, does not do any recycling.

“Everything they take in is shipped out, sometimes a very long distance.”

And in the end, unless there is a profit to be made by recycling, much of that material ends up in landfill at the end of the day.

“A large proportion of things we recycle end up in landfill.”

Even if recycling does take place, it does not necessarily result in a net environmental benefit.

She cited the example of polystyrene (styro-foam).

“Until recently it was transported to North Bay, where it undergoes chemical processing creating hazardous waste. The end product is then trucked to Montreal, and shipped to South Korea or the US, where it is reprocessed into things like picture frames, which are then transported back here to be purchased and then trashed 6 or so months later.”

Currently the styrofoam from KARC is being transported even further, to Indianapolis. There are different market conditions for all of the recycled materials collected by KARC, and Dr. Hird said that because private companies like Waste Management handle both the waste and recycling streams, it is treated as a product that is handled as a commodity to be turned into profit.

“Companies like Waste Management can stockpile recycled materials and wait so see if the market for them improves, but if it doesn't, they end up transferring it to the waste stream,” she said.

Some materials, such as plastics, are rarely recycled because of their make-up.

“Only 9% of plastics are recycled in Canada, not because we don't recycle but because most plastics are composites that cannot be recycled.

Studies also show that recycling does not result in a decreased extraction of resources, and may also tend to increase consumption of goods, because people think all is well since they are able to recycle the packaging, or the product itself.

“Civil engineers have known about this for years. It is known as the dirty little secret of recycling. There is lots of data on all of this, it is just that it is unpopular.”

When asked if municipalities are aware of the real impact of recycling programs, she said that she is not sure, but she knows that the federal government is aware, and based on the “Beyond the Blue Box” studies in Ontario, “it appears the provincial government is aware as well.”

When asked during an extensive question period, she said that she has never been consulted by the City of Kingston, she said she hasn't, but before COVID-19 hit she was approached by the Mayor of the Township of Leeds and the Thousand Islands, who was interested in looking at waste and recycling from a regional perspective.

Not only is recycling ineffective, even counter-productive, she said that the focus on recycling has come at the expense of the first two Rs, ‘Reduce’ and ‘Reuse’. ‘Reduce’ is the most effective thing to do.

“The best thing to do, is to just stop buying things.” On a government policy level, the most effective measure, she said, would be to use regulations to force producers to take extended responsibility for the impact of the goods they produce. Without political pressure from the public, through political engagement, the “industrial producers will continue to control the agenda.”

“It is better for the producers if we are concerned with whether we put the coffee cup lid in the right bin, than if we confront the system, which is horribly disastrous for our species, catastrophic not only for us but for other animals as well.

“So long as we don't confront production and consumption, we are not going to make a difference.”

Dr. Hird just published a new book, which contains much of the material that formed the basis for her presentation. It is called Canada Waste Flows.