Canada's environment ministers are proposing to charge the corporate world for recycling their packaging once consumers are done with it, the Canadian Press reports.
The Canada-wide Action Plan for Extended Producer Responsibility would make businesses responsible for recovering and recycling their non-biodegradable packaging. The strategy was drafted by a task force of the Canadian Council of Ministers of the Environment.
The plan includes another strategy which would establish tougher standards designed to ensure that packages can be recycled and managed in a way that's better than sending them to landfills.
The plan envisions that within six years of being approved, it would make businesses responsible for handling the recovering of packaging, printed materials, CFL bulbs, electronics, household hazardous and special wastes, as well as automotive products.
Two years after that, the plan envisions covering construction and demolition materials, furniture, textiles and carpets, as well as appliances.
Canada is not alone on this front. The Local Government Association (LGA) in Britain, a cross-party organization representing councils in England, is arguing that supermarkets should pay for the recycling costs of packaging from products they sell.
