Businesses are ready to collaborate with governments and lead in developing systems that manage the recovery and recycling of the products they create.

This approach can create a natural incentive to design products and packaging with a lighter environmental impact. It can also help develop economies of scale, and establish packaging and recycled-content goals which can help drive demand for recycled content and create new markets. 

 

These programs, when designed by plastic producers, are effective and efficient. In British Columbia, which has the highest rate of waste recovery in Canada (78%), businesses that create plastic packaging and products fund a non-profit that manages the province’s residential plastic packaging and paper product recycling.

 

Industry-led recycling and recovery programs also encourage producers to create more recyclable products and connect different industries to recycled materials. This means industries like motor vehicles, agriculture, construction and more can make better use of recycled content.  

 

Innovative programs like these create a partnership between industry and governments to ensure that plastics are part of a true circular economy, and they better keep plastic waste from entering the environment.

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