Submitted by urbanimpact-admin on

Everyone is banking on Extended Producer Responsiblity as being the way to save ourselves from mountains of garbage in BC and in other jurisdictions.   I have heard lots of arguments for and against transfering the cost of collection, recycling and marketing of products to the producers.

I do believe that fundementally it makes sense and EPR could drive packaging improvements (less waste), reduce costs by streamlining services and collection and theoretically more product will help drive innovative uses for the product collected.  Did I mention "could"?

For me it is a big, could.

My fear is that EPR will not save the day.  My fear is that the important changes that need to happen in our society with respect to packaging of merchandise and products will ultimately be ignored because the sale of the product ultimately pays the bills.  We humans are magpies, we are drawn to shiny, fancy things.  To think that the producer of any product would eliminate a package and might hinder the sale of their product, is a mistake.  Not going to happen.

In addition, I have serious concerns,  BC's infrastructure of collection, processing and marketing of products has been built on private (collection vehicles, processing technology, marketing) and muncipal (collection infrastructure, marketing campaigns, call centres etc) and all of a sudden transfering these costs and management to the producer (albeit private companies) is going to be more effective?  I think it is a big mistake to believe that the free market which has been driving diversion in the province for the last 30 years is not acting efficiently and effectively.