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Canadians piling up more garbage than ever before as disposables rule

September 30, 2015

Canadians piling up more garbage than ever before as disposables rule

There’s a high price to pay for our love affair with products of convenience

We like to think we’re behaving like model citizens, hauling our recycling to the curb and composting our banana peels. But the sad truth is, Canadians are piling up more household garbage than ever before. It appears that even in an era of environmental awareness, we just can’t quit our love affair with convenient, disposable products.

Unfortunately, all that convenience is costing us both environmentally and financially.

According to Statistics Canada’s latest data, the total amount of trash that Canadian households tossed increased by almost seven per cent since 2004 to 9.6 million tonnes in 2012. Although the population rose at a slightly faster rate over that period, the growing trash output is still startling considering the significant ramping up of the country’s many recycling and composting programs over those years.

“I’m not totally surprised but I am disappointed,” says Emily Alfred, waste campaigner with Toronto Environmental Alliance. She says a big culprit is the rapid pace of disposable products piling up in the marketplace.

“The rate of product design and new things being put on the market is faster than most municipalities’ [recycling systems] can keep up with,” she says.

Can’t get enough of convenience

recycling frozen vegetables

Frozen vegetables in stand-up plastic bags on display in a store freezer. The City of Toronto cannot recycle these bags. (CBC)

One good example — those convenient resealable plastic bags often containing frozen fruit or vegetables that stand upright in a grocery store’s freezer. “It’s great for advertisers because you can now see their products,” says Alfred.

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