- cross-posted to:
- canadapolitics@lemmy.ca
- cross-posted to:
- canadapolitics@lemmy.ca
The industry’s trade association, the Retail Council of Canada, said the new policy “unfortunately” targets large grocers exclusively.
“Which is impractical, as Canadian retailers lack direct control and influence over the global supply chain,” said Michelle Wasylyshen, the council’s national spokesperson.
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Seriously. The amount of foam trays and plastic containers used is insane, and entirely because it would cost more to develop a biodegradable alternative than to accept a bad look and just say it’s for the consumer’s bottom line.
While I admit that some things are done better in traditional plastic until we can create decent and cheap bioplastics (we’re getting close for low strength, though I don’t know if transparency is good or not), many things can just be swapped with waxed paper or cardboard. We’ve been using waxed paper for cup for decades now, just adapt that for other uses.
… Canadian retailers lack direct control and influence over the global supply chain…
I’m going to call BS on that one. Some of the largest retailers own many parts of the supply chain and exercise monopsony power over many other parts.
Ikr, like you’re telling me loblaws owned Zehrs cant cut down on their presidents choice (Loblaw) brand products shipped by loblaws transportation and logistics? They really have no control over that?
Are people mad about this?
I rather my egg cartons come in recyclable cardboard than the weird ass plastic thing. Milk used to come in glass bottles. Peanut butter and jam too. Theres absolutely no fucking reason to put bananas in a plastic Ziploc bag.
Y’all want more microplastics?
Milk is generally better off in plastic than glass for emissions reasons, unfortunately. Glass is too heavy
Avalon Dairy in BC uses glass bottles, and grocery stores which sell them take them (in exchange for your $1 deposit) and send the bottles straight back to Avalon. They get cleaned and reused directly. If you’re at the store, you can look closely at all the bottles and find the dates they were first used. Alas, I’ve kind of gone off getting them now that we’re using 2L bottles of milk every week - the bigger bottles are extra bulky and my nearest grocery store doesn’t sell Avalon.
I’m still a big fan, though. It’s a good system, it genuinely causes the bottles to be reused (instead of just not made out of plastic, or “recycled”), and it’s so simple. We could easily have this for everything if we regulated (or at least incentivized) specific containers for groceries, at least for things packaged domestically. No more needlessly complicated special jars for different brands of maple syrup. If every company used the same containers, when they reach the recycling depot (hopefully intact, although that’s another problem) we could actually do something sensible with the things.
