Can a (landlocked) province be an island?

Editorial

Recycling prices drive us all crazy. They are generally low, often volatile, and they are set by world markets - conditions that we have no influence over. The nearest recycling facilities for some materials are out of province - sometimes WAY out (our pop cans are recycled in Kentucky).This makes it hard to justify recycling when everyone looks around at the relatively cheap and available land that we could just bury everything in. It looks like the better deal (especially when we take a short-term view).

Yes, we live in a global economy, but does that mean there's nothing we can do about this? Using the old "think global, act local" approach, maybe if we built our recycling systems so that the province was both provider of recyclable materials and user of recycled product, we might be able to insulate ourselves from the world a bit. Paint collected through Nova Scotia's paint stewardship program is recycled in the province and sold back to Nova Scotia residents. They become their own market.

Now I know that this approach won't work for all materials. The plant in Kentucky that recycles our pop cans uses up Saskatchewan's annual production of cans (137 million) in under a week. Sometimes economies of scale just win out. But that doesn't mean that it might not work for some commodities. If new recycling programs are carefully thought out, if we can become our own market for recycled products, maybe we could reduce the uncertainty over recycling prices.

For something like this to work, we would have to be willing to buy products made from recycled materials. In many cases, we are some of the way down this road. No one turns up their nose at recycled content paper anymore. In fact, paper manufacturers have become so good at making paper from recycled content that it is difficult to tell it apart from virgin paper and people are complaining because their paper doesn't look recycled enough (we've become used to the flecks and now we like them). We are pleased when we hear that IPSCO uses only recycled product in their steel. On the other hand, not a lot of people bought re-refined motor oil (even though it was actually cleaner than newly refined oil), so it's not generally available anymore. Maybe we'll wrinkle up our noses a bit at recycled paint, at least until someone convinces us that it is as good, or better, than regular paint.

So, it will take some effort on our part to remain open-minded and try recycled content products. The other thing we need to do is actively seek out these products. If we create the market, someone will be there to try and fill it. As consumers, we can have some influence on the products available to us. We need to use our power for good.

(Source: June 2006 WasteWatch)

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