I have been waiting for…

I have been waiting for years for this initiative In Ontario. I have no vested interest, except care for our environment, and I’ve heard that it has worked very successfully in Sweden for years. We are drowning in over- packaging!

I have a couple of concerns. ...

The current composting program is working very well in Durham Region. Our food waste and compostable paper products are collected weekly, whereas residual waste only every two weeks. This encourages everyone to compost. Every spring we go to the facility and get buckets of ready compost for our gardens. Most people have very little residual waste. I do not want to see any change that would result in a loss of our compost program as it currently runs.

I am also concerned that producers will be looking for loopholes. I realize that minimum thresholds are necessary in some form, but I worry that this will be abused.

I also realize that this is a complex task, and clearly you have considered a lot of details. I did not go over it with a “fine tooth comb”. I don’t have expertise in business or economics.

I am a MSc chemist, and thus have considerable expertise in materials and their properties, and I realize that many items collected currently in the blue boxes are not actually being recovered and recycled. However, I think that it’s important that this new welcome initiative be implemented very carefully. Otherwise we may find ourselves drowning in our garbage to an even greater extent than we are now. Our consumption based, throw away society and economy is at the root of the problem, but that can’t be changed easily with any legislation.

I am cautiously optimistic that some positive change might come from this initiative. Thanks for your hard work!