Eco-Friendly Taxes on Packaging

Packaging waste in our garbage

Toronto council has approved a program to permit closure of garbage chutes in the selected Toronto residential buildings starting May 1 with the goal of improving the recycling rates. The success of the program will be evaluated a year from now.

Some parents may have also hear about eco-school program by Toronto District School Board where schools sign up to be litter-less and students are encourage to bring in lunch that produces no waste.
The program is designed to make environmental awareness and action an integral part of school life.
Preparing students to become responsible citizens and help them lean to balance the independent needs of a healthy environment, a healthy economy and a healthy society.

Currently Canada is the second-highest per capita producer of municipal solid waste in the world so anything we can do to lower our garbage footprint is a fantastic thing but are we not tackling dealing with products that are over-packaged.

Toys these days are so well packaged most of us have to wage a war to get the toy out. Vegetables and meat have more packaging than ever before. I don’t understand why cucumbers need to be wrapped in a plastic! Why does tooth paste need a box?

Does it make sense to heavily tax products that are over-packaged ? Wouldn’t we get quicker results by tackling the source of the problem? Hopefully the by-product would be greener solutions and technologies.