This editorial has been amended since first posting.
Something revolutionary happened in an Oklahoma courtroom on Monday: Johnson & Johnson was ordered to pay $572 million for its role in fomenting the state’s opioid crisis.
What was revolutionary was not the price of the penalty but the fact that the time-honoured downstream route from corporation to marketplace finally curved back upstream. Rather than washing their hands in earnings reports, the pharmaceutical giant was told their responsibility does not end at the point of sale. It’s a message we hope sweeps across Canada.
Ethically speaking, recycling is unassailable. Economically speaking, it’s a tough sell. As a nation, we recycle about nine per cent of our 3.3 million tonnes of plastic waste. And as polymer tides turn up on beaches and plastic bags show up in the intestinal tracts of marine animals, we need our federal government to pass the buck to the companies that have enriched themselves at the expense of the environment.
From now on, packaging materials – much like campaign promises – should be used over and over again.
There’s a heavy financial burden to that circular economy but there are new jobs there as well. And when we factor in the price of landfills reaching capacity and incinerators working overtime, the cost-benefit analysis of nationwide extended producer responsibility looks increasingly favourable.
The creation of plastic waste and greenhouse gas emissions are destroying our planet. From here on out let’s all agree: you make it, you bought it.
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