A Canada-wide strategy for sustainable packaging : Stratégie pancanadienne pour l'emaballage écologique

Purpose The purpose of the Canada-wide Strategy for Sustainable Packaging is to build on the Canada- wide Action Plan for EPR to help create a more consistent Canada-wide approach to EPR for packaging and to support a shift by all packaging actors towards greater packaging sustainability. [...] The Strategy aims to increase awareness and information about packaging sustainability among all packaging actors and to promote reductions in packaging and more sustainable packaging choices at all stages of the packaging life cycle – from packaging design to waste management. [...] From 2007 to 2009 the Task Group engaged stakeholders and consultants in a variety of activities that culminated in the development of two documents: • A Canada-wide Action Plan for Extended Producer Responsibility; and • A Canada-wide Strategy for Sustainable Packaging The Canada-wide Action Plan for EPR The Canada-wide Action Plan for Extended Producer Responsibility commits all jurisdictions to [...] Canada-wide implementation of many of the supporting measures can help improve the efficacy and consistency of the measures, reduce administrative costs and burdens for industry, and increase the impact of the measures to influence packaging redesign. [...] A more meaningful designation of “recyclability” relies on a number of factors – not just the type of materials used, but also the construction of the packaging (e.g., composite packaging is difficult to recycle), the cost and availability of recycling technology, consumer access to a recovery system, and the end-market demand for the recovered materials.