As an Ontario consumer, this…

As an Ontario consumer, this is a major step backward. I diligently compost and recycle and have lived abroad where requirements for recycling are much more onerous than here. Recycling was not optional and producers were required to clearly label materials to facilitate recycling. Here, I am consistently frustrated by packaging that is not recyclable and by an inability to recycle while outside of my own home. Removing the requirement for public collection of beverage containers is especially ridiculous - recyclable materials will continue to end up in landfills, at massive cost to the environment and Ontarians for generations to come. Particularly for glass and PET bottles, which are highly recyclable, it is genuinely disgraceful.

To remove any targets for multi-residential buildings/schools/etc is pathetically mediocre - we should set a realistic but ambitious target and actually work toward it. If you must revise a target, do so but don't simply give up. The impression I have as a consumer is that producers are abdicating their responsibilities and the province is happy to allow that.

On flexible plastic, incineration and its use for energy can be a good solution to reducing landfill waste, a major concern. Reducing the unnecessary use of such plastic in the first place is essential. Simply giving up on targets will not achieve this or, in fact, anything.

If producers are struggling to recycle materials, might I suggest using different materials? Might I suggest innovation of any sort? These are not little cottage industries, with mom and pop turning out plastic packaging in the garage; these are major corporations making a choice to use certain materials. For the province, might I suggest regulation forbidding at least some unrecyclable materials for ordinary consumer packaging? Perhaps this is rude sounding, but I am frustrated, with producers and with the province. Ontario is frequently content to be merely acceptable, rather than good or excellent. This is another example of that, at the cost of our environment and taxpayers.