Ontario Recycling Program Creates "Huge Carbon Footprint"

(Toronto, Canada) Since cities in Ontario do not have facilities to process their own garbage, "recyclables" are loaded onboard ships and sent across the Pacific Ocean. Reportedly, 20,000 tons are transported out each year.

"The question is, how much do we want to transport materials around?" said Glenda Gies, executive director of Waste Diversion Ontario, which oversees the provincial blue-box program. "We really do want to support the Ontario economy, we want to process these materials here."

Most residents recycle with the belief they are helping the environment and are unaware that their municipalities are shipping materials to China and South Korea, creating a huge new carbon footprint.

"It is a contentious issue here," said Jo-Anne St. Godard, executive director of the Recycling Council of Ontario. [...]

To get to China from Toronto, the mixed paper is stacked in bales, placed in shipping containers and sent across country to the port of Vancouver by train, said Jake Westerhof, of Canada Fibres, which sells Toronto's paper to Nine Dragons [Chinese recycling facility].

From Vancouver, it is placed on a large freighter ship and spends several weeks at sea before arriving in one of China's southern ports. It is moved into a truck a driven several hours before arriving at the massive Nine Dragons paper mill in the province of Guangdong.

Ontario taxpayers cover half the cost of the recycling program which reportedly creates a much greater carbon footprint than if there were no recycling program at all.

Since significant taxpayer funding supports the recycling program and the program actually does more harm than good, maybe it's time to remind the electorate of the exact reasoning behind the effort.