Manitobans a long way from being green

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Across Canada, 97 per cent of households now recycle, and some provinces have fewer than one household in 100 who don't recycle -- but guess which province is last?

Manitoba, with only 88 per cent of households recycling.

At a time when the rest of Canada is diverting almost one-quarter of its garbage away from landfills, Manitoba has gone in the other direction.

While the province kept almost 20 per cent of its trash out of dumps in 2002, the latest provincial figures provided to The Canadian Press show only 13 per cent of Manitoba's garbage was diverted in 2006.

"There have always been places in Canada that are more environmentally aware than Manitoba," said Anne Lindsey, executive director of the environmental coalition Manitoba Eco-Network.

"That has been par for the course on many issues, including knowledge and awareness of climate change... There is something about the geography here."

Manitobans are throwing away 100,000 tonnes more now than they were in 2002, provincial figures show. StatsCan studies show Manitoba lags behind almost every other province in composting, using energy-efficient light bulbs, and conserving water, and some activists say Manitoba lacks incentive partially because of its abundance of land.

Unlike Nova Scotia, surrounded mostly by water, or Toronto, which is forced to ship its garbage to Michigan, Manitoba's 250 landfills are a long way from being full.

"The landfill here has an anticipated life of 100 years or more in terms of its capacity to accept waste," said Randall McQuaker, executive director of Resource Conservation Manitoba in Winnipeg.

"It appears to some that the waste problem here is not as urgent. We can just keep sending all our stuff to the landfill. Of course that is a horrendous waste of energy and a horrendous waste of resources."

Businesses have to pay for recycling services and there are very few accessible places for people to responsibly dispose of old computers and other electronic waste, McQuaker pointed out.

It's time the government made it easier for residents to do the right thing, McQuaker suggested.

"This is an area where some other provinces have moved, but Manitoba has not."

Manitoba Conservation Minister Stan Struthers wouldn't commit to any new programs until he consults with "industry partners" but said he knows Manitoba must do better.

"I'm the first to say that we have to do more," Struthers said in an interview. "I'm concerned about the trends. We have to do more to make sure that we don't have all that ending up in our landfills."

Prof. Shirley Thompson of the University of Manitoba's Natural Resources Institute and a waste researcher, said recycling availability at some Manitoba public facilities is appalling.

For example, Thompson said she knows of city hospitals which don't recycle glass. Businesses forgo recycling because it's more expensive to recycle certain materials than to toss them, she said.

"Recycling should cost less than waste-disposal fees, and then it would be a good business decision to recycle," she said. "Right now, it's a bad business decision to recycle."

Jim Fogg, Manitoba Product Stewardship Corporation general manager, said Manitoba is "very competitive" in per-capita recycling of printed paper, packaging and containers.

"When you start getting into other questions -- if you're talking about electronics, household hazardous waste, all the other items, tires, oil, oil containers, I can't speak to those statistics," he said.

Heather Stefanson, the provincial Tory critic for environmental issues, said the NDP positions itself as a "green party" but the party's policies don't reflect that.

-- The Canadian Press, with files

from Gabrielle Giroday

Who's greenest?

Recycling rates across Canada:

88 per cent: Manitoba

94 per cent: Newfoundland and Labrador

95 per cent: Quebec

96 per cent: Saskatchewan, Alberta, New Brunswick

97 per cent: Canadian average

98 per cent: Ontario

99 per cent: P.E.I., Nova Scotia, B.C.

Who makes

the most garbage?

Trash produced per person:

1,133 kilograms: Alberta

1,011 kilograms: Northwest Territories

890 kilograms: Quebec

869 kilograms: Manitoba

675 kilograms: British Columbia

601 kilograms: New Brunswick

430 kilograms: Nova Scotia

-- Source: Statistics Canada 2006 household participation rates for environmental behaviours, by province

Republished from the Winnipeg Free Press print edition January 26, 2009 A3