The latest PPEC blog presents the statistics and discusses the importance of recycling data.
The new data shows that Canadian households and businesses diverted 9,898,882 tonnes of waste in 2022, and of the total amount diverted, 3,571,384 tonnes were paper fibres, which include newsprint, paperboard and paperboard flat, as well as mixed paper.
Paper fibers represent the majority of materials diverted, with 36% of total waste diverted from Canadian landfills in 2022.
The second largest category of diverted materials, at 31 percent, is organic materials, which includes food waste, yard waste, and other organic materials such as wood and agricultural materials. The 2022 survey represents the first time Canada’s statistical agency has published a breakdown of composted organic material by category, with the majority of organic material, 52% or 1.6 million tonnes, reported as food waste.
Digging deeper into the paper data, of the total 3.57 million tonnes of fiber diverted in Canada in 2022, 40% was diverted via residential sources (i.e. residential packaging recycling programs such as blue box), while the remaining 60% was diverted to non-residential sources. -residential sources (i.e. industrial, commercial and institutional (ICI) sector).
Below is a complete breakdown of paper fiber diversion by province and Source, with the two most populous provinces – Ontario and Quebec, which together represent more than 60% of Canada’s total population – diverting the most much of the paper fiber comes from residential sources and ICI, at 70%. of the total tonnes diverted (2,484,179 / 3,571,384).
Regarding the new data for 2022, Statistics Canada has indicated that “diverting plastic waste from disposal has become a challenge due to the many types of difficult-to-recycle plastics that are produced for consumption and enter the waste stream.”
Of the nearly 9.9 million total tons of materials diverted, 366,694 tons included plastics that were sent to material recycling facilities (where recyclables are taken to be sorted and prepared for sale), which represents 3.7 percent of total diversion, with the majority of plastic being diverted. (72%) from residential sources.
The Government of Canada is working to combat plastic as part of its Zero plastic waste program and its Regulations banning single-use plastics entered into force in December 2022, and recently announcement his new Federal Plastics Register , which will follow plastic. from production to end of life. The federal government is also considering other regulatory proposals for plastics, such as minimum recycled content requirements and federal labeling rules for recyclability and compostability.
And Canada is also currently at the table with other governments, businesses and stakeholders from around the world gathered in Ottawa for the fourth session of the Intergovernmental Negotiating Committee on Plastic Pollution (CNI-4), which will be held from April 23 to 29. work to develop a legally binding international instrument to end plastic pollution.
Reducing plastic waste and generally diverting as much waste as possible is not only an environmental imperative, but also makes business sense.
A circular economy approach to paper packaging management is directly rooted in our industry’s business model: it makes sense to collect as much used paper fiber as possible to use as raw material, instead of using virgin materials.
Given the importance of recycling to PPEC and its members, who rely on the use of recycled fibers in their operations, PPEC monitors available recycling data in residential waste streams and ICI. It is important to have accurate data to be able to track and measure progress and make evidence-based policy and regulatory decisions.
And based on the available data, including these latest statistics, it is clear that paper packaging is a highly diverted and recycled material in Canada.
The Canadian paper packaging industry continues to be a leader in integrating recycling into all aspects of its operations. PPEC members are not only suppliers of recyclable paper packaging, they also process collected paper materials through their own recycling divisions, and end market customers purchase recycled paper fibers, factories using recycled content as the main raw material. This allows recycled materials to circulate for longer, allowing paper fibers to be reused so they can be made into new paper packaging products. And this cycle repeats itself every time a resident or business recycles their clean paper-based packaging.
Rachel Kagan
Executive Director
Paper and Cardboard Packaging Environmental Council (PPEC)
