Conversations
about reducing and eliminating disposable, single-use plastics are
becoming more and more widespread, globally and on a local, municipal
level. 

 

Certainly,
from swirling ocean islands of plastic to the emissions created from
the constant production and recycling of the stuff, most of us are aware
at this point of the detriment that our steady diet of plastic is
having on the natural world. 

 

Within
the County of Haliburton, Dysart et al is emerging as the leader in
efforts to curb plastic consumption, purchasing water stations for Head
Lake Park. The idea is that once enough water stations are available in
the park, that vendors at events there will no longer be permitted to
sell plastic bottles of water. All of the townships should be
re-evaluating their plastics consumption and looking at policy change,
including outfitting their roads departments with reusable water
vessels, rather than skids upon skids of water bottled in disposable
plastic. While they are commonplace to most of us alive now, remember
that single-use disposal plastics are relatively new in the span of
human history. Humanity got by and stayed hydrated for a long time
without them, so presumably can do so again in the future. 

 

The
County of Haliburton is moving ahead with a climate change plan for
itself and its lower tiers, and presumably dealing with plastics will be
part of that framework once complete. 

 

And
while it’s important for municipalities to become leaders in reducing
use of plastics, ultimately, the problem can only be sufficiently dealt
with by going after the corporations that are the producers of these
plastics in the first place. They are the ones flooding the marketplace
with them, but the task of cleaning them up falls to municipal
governments through their waste management responsibilities. 

 

As
the Association of Municipalities of Ontario points out in a recent
document, municipalities need the provincial and federal levels of
government to pass legislation forcing producers to be responsible for
the end-of-life care of their products. 

 

“Make
producers fully responsible for managing waste from their products and
packaging,” it reads.  “Municipal governments have no control over the
materials that businesses choose to use or commodity markets. Full
producer responsibility is the only way to encourage innovation and
deliver better economic and environmental outcomes, while reducing the
burden on taxpayers.” 

 

And boom goes the dynamite. 

 

Individual
responsibility and municipal prudence are important when dealing with
the plastics problem, but a truly sustainable solution will only come
about by going after the corporations that use plastics in such immense
volumes to begin with. Make companies responsible for the end-of-life
treatment of their products, subject to steep financial penalties, and
watch how quickly more environmentally friendly packaging will be
adopted.