By Daniela Ginta

The Way I See It

GINTA: We can save ourselves from being buried in our own waste

Sep 30, 2019 | 3:10 PM

IT’S AN UNFORTUNATE HUMAN-SPECIFIC ATTRIBUTE that many of us do not adopt change unless some catastrophic events ensue. It is good times we are living in, defined by abundance and shall we say, excess, whether it is food or everyday life items. For the latter category, we have so much we’re spoiled rotten.

No pun intended, but that’s where my story is heading. To the rotting part, which waste in general lends itself to. Less so plastic, which ‘rots’ in its own way, which we can more accurately call leach. More so when piled high in heaps ‘two storeys high and spanning the length of two football fields’ somewhere in Malaysia, according to a CBC news story that documented the issue recently. Yes, again.

Every year, Canadians use 3.3 billion tonnes of plastic and a meager nine per cent gets recycled. The rest goes to the landfill or adds to the plastic pollution in our natural environment or gets fraudulently shipped across the world to a country where it is expected to magically vanish, which it doesn’t. Either way, it’s out of (our) sight, therefore out of (our) mind. Others are not so lucky. People in countries where our waste is sent are plagued by severe health issues, because that’s what improperly managed waste does.

Most of us expect that our blue bin contents go to a recycling depot where everything gets sorted and sent towards a new life. Recycling feels good, but as stated many times before, it’s a bit of an illusion. According to a government report, 86 per cent of plastics end up in the landfill. The same report estimates that by 2030, the lost financial opportunity related to unrecycled plastics could reach CAD $11.1 billion. That would mean a lot of jobs and money to be spent for worthy projects.

Logically speaking, our waste-related problems would be much smaller if consumption would decrease to begin with. When less product is consumed, less waste is produced. Ultimately that leads to less being produced, which eases our other troubles, such as pollution and dwindling non-renewable resources. There is no denial, our plastic ‘diet’ is a heavy one.

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I had many conversations with people over the banning of plastic bags, straws, plates, cutlery and other immediately evident single-use plastic items. I wish them gone yesterday, but if only it were that simple. The above mentioned are but the tip of the iceberg when it comes to single-use plastics. I agree, we have to start somewhere. But.

Ubiquitous and varied as they are, it becomes nauseating when one attempts to get the whole picture. Just step into a retail store, dollar store or even thrift store. Look around; plastic abounds. Or go into a grocery store. Though we may opt to forgo the plastic bags, many of the food items we buy in a store come wrapped in plastic. Getting around that is beyond challenging.

Some coffee shops still serve their beverages, hot or cold ones, in single-use cups, and some still provide straws, too — plastic ones. It’s hard to keep the momentum going, I know. Life in the fast lane obliterates the waste that we leave behind.

Because the plastic industry will not simply subscribe to the plastic reduction movement — though one could argue, and strongly so, that the greater good needs it badly — it’s ultimately up to people to use less of the present-day conventional choice (which is the disposable items) in favour of the back-in-the-day conventional, which used to be the reusable items.

It is possible. It is necessary, and more than that, it is urgent, because the world is waking up to not wanting our waste. And why would they? If each country takes care of its waste, be it plastic, food, and everything else that we are so quick to classify as garbage, people would have a better representation of their habits.

It is high time we assess ours and take care of the waste we produce in a responsible way. Decreasing our plastic dependence has been started already; let’s keep the momentum going by making better choices. Every single one adds up.

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Editor’s Note: This opinion piece reflects the views of its author, and does not necessarily represent the views of CFJC Today or the Jim Pattison Broadcast Group.