Ontario Waste Management Industry Summary

Case Background: - In transportation industry, one of the biggest challenge is how to deal with carbon dioxide emissions and how to reduce the energy. According to the Natural Resources Canada, one third of the greenhouse emission is because of transportation industry.

Recycling helps the Earth and environment more than the average person realizes. Conserving energy, or finding more efficient and more eco friendly ways of getting energy also helps keep the Earth healthy. If more people recycle and factories and industries reuse their materials, the hunt for more raw materials will not be as necessary and harmful to the Earth. A lot of materials are not reused and instead new materials have to be brought in and that wastes not only materials but energy too. Recycling steel could reduce energy uses by 60% and easily help conserve a lot of energy. A ton of companies use steel so it would not be very difficult to do. A form of recycling that is not very well known is burning trash instead of burying it the way we do in the U.S.. Sweden practices this concept and their theory is that the majority of the things they burn in the fire were part of the carbon cycle not very long ago so it is as if they are speeding up the carbon cycle without hurting their environment. This plan also is helpful

The heavy usage of machinery and fossil fuels required in industrialization leads to high amounts of carbon emissions. The mass amount of raw materials used in each industry accumulates and

In 1986, a waste treaty between Canada and the U.S. was signed by American lawmakers concerning the Transboundary Movement of Hazardous Waste.  Under the terms of this treaty, the EPA is to receive notification of these shipments, and then would have 30 days to consent or object to the shipment. Since 1986 Canada has shipped its garbage to Michigan to be dumped into landfills and the provisions of this treaty have never been enforced.  But now is the time for them to be enforced and stop the importing of Canada's garbage.

Stewart Elgie, a University of Ottawa law and economics professor and chair of the green economy think-tank Sustainable Prosperity suggests that British Columbia’s per-capita fuel usage had fallen more than 4 per cent compared with the rest of Canada and its economy (Ebner, McCarthy, 2011) Evidently it is reducing the amount of green house gasses emitted by fossil fuel use. However this is not the concern many had with the introduction of the tax, but the concerns were focused upon the externalities caused by this and the effects it would have on the economy. Three years since the carbon tax introduction and the Provincial level of GDP has remained approximately the same, (Greenery in Canada: We have a winner) With the provincial level of GDP remaining around the same, this suggests that at the very worst the carbon tax has had no negative effects to the provincial economy. Furthermore the tax also promised to remain carbon neutral and promised to cut corporate and private income tax. British Columbia has become the province with the lowest income tax regime and the lowest corporate tax regime (Greenery in Canada: We have a winner). Although the carbon tax is being praised by many, it still faces concerns as many still argue the ineffectiveness of the tax and what that means for the province.

A very important issue tied to Canada’s future sustainability is that of recycling. There is currently a shortage of suitable landfill spaces in Canada, and the current landfills produce harmful emissions (Statistics Canada, 2008). Using methods to divert as many of these wastes away from landfills will help to slow their growth and improve Canada’s future outlook. Recycling is one such method.

Ontario has its own creative and effective strategies to combat climate change. One of Ontario’s goal is a low-carbon future. To accomplish this the province started making carbon reductions in 1990 and are on track to reduce carbon emissions by 15% in 2020, 37 per cent in 2030 and 80 per cent in 2050 (Climate Change Action Plan, 2017). Ontario’s target of reducing emissions by 6% was met on schedule in 2014 (Climate Change Action Plan, 2017). One of the reasons this has been made possible is because of Ontario’s investment in carbon reduction. For example, in 2015 Ontario committed $325-million payment to Ontario’s Green Investment Fund to support programs that help households and businesses implement

A cap-and-trade program sets a maximum level of pollution, and distributes emission permits among firms that produce emissions (Carbon Tax, 2013). The purpose of which is regulation of specific emissions by stationary and mobile sources, and setting a specific level which all emitters are re-quired to meet. Cap-and-trade possibly has less of a direct economic component to it than the other alternatives to reducing emissions described due to the ability to trade permits versus the expendi-ture of resources improving technology, with some arguing it is to the detriment of the environment. As stated in the article found in Reclaiming the Environmental Agenda, by Ashford, N. et al., 2008, “being a market-based instrument, ‘the cap-and-trade option suggests that at least this form of MBI may be more environmentally effective than the usual command-and-control alternatives, in addition to being more economically efficient.” (Ashford, N. and Caldart, C., 2008, p. 908).

Climate change has become the most serious global environmental threat with sides of people who do not believe it exists and people who are actually aware. The release of greenhouse gases such as carbon and methane into the atmosphere has been known to be one of the major causes of climate change. Scientists explain that these emissions must drastically reduce to avoid a 2°C rise in average global temperature. Therefore different countries have made policies and ways to reduce the production of these gases and Canada is one of them. Canada ranks 15th out of 17 countries for greenhouse gas emissions per capita.Canada’s per capita decreased by nearly 5% between 1990 and 2010 while the total GHG emissions in Canada grew by 17%. The

Food Waste has become a serious issue in Canada, one which needs to be addressed and resolved. $31 billion tonnes of food get thrown away each year, around 47% of food waste is from in home use, 53% of goof waste is from food be produced, processed, transported, sold, and prepared. The organic waste is then dumped into landfill where it undergoes the decomposition, and is used to create methane, which is 25x more damaging to the environment then carbon dioxide. The strange thing is there is many different solutions to food waste! It really takes little effort to go a long way in this situation, I want to make every aware and show how simple preventing food waste can be.

Cap and trade is a system aimed at diminishing the rate at which carbon is emitted into the atmosphere by creating an economic system based on meeting a certain minimal threshold or paying low-emitting companies for the right to emit in their place. For example, if company A only emits half of the emissions cap, that company can sell (or trade) the remaining credits to company B, should company B choose to emit one-and-a-half times the cap. A main objection to the cap and trade system is that it is not a strong enough means by which to curb emissions of fossil fuels and is inferior to specifically stronger carbon taxes. While initially appealing, the notion of simply strengthening carbon taxes fails to properly stifle carbon emissions and to adequately incentivize “green” development in comparison to the cap and trade system, preventing carbon taxes from occupying a central role to mitigate carbon emissions.

Cap-and-trade is a program which uses a market-based mechanism to control greenhouse gas emissions, the primary driver of global warming. The “cap” sets a limit on emissions, which is lowered over time to reduce the amount of pollutants released into the atmosphere. It limits emissions in electric power generation, natural gas, transportation, and large manufacturers. The “trade” creates a market for carbon allowances, leading to more cost-effective pollution cuts, and incentive to invest in cleaner technology. The less they emit, the less they pay, so it is in their economic incentive to pollute less. Each allowance (typically equivalent to one metric ton of carbon dioxide) are auctioned or allocated to regulated emitters on a regular basis.

First we should understand how the carbon cap and trade system came about. The system of carbon cap trade used to be known as ‘emissions trading’, the alliance of free-market republicans and renegade environmentalists got the system adopted as national law in 1990 as a part of the Clean Air Act, to control the power-plant pollutants that cause acid rain, which is triggered by vast clouds of sulfur dioxide

When products are made they require the use of machines to manufacture and vehicles to transport. Regardless of which product, it is extremely labor intensive and expensive to get the resources we need. Using recycled materials also moves jobs into the green economy. Washington State defines green jobs as those that “promote environmental protection and energy independence.” The Green Economy Scenario produces more than 2,347,000 total direct jobs which is over 1.1 million more jobs than in the Base Case, and nearly 1.5 million more jobs than in 2008 (Save On Energy). Recycling keeps materials out of landfills where they can contaminate groundwater systems and create greenhouse gases. It also decreases the amount of pollution filling the air and water and keeps harmful materials out of incinerators. Compared to using raw materials, using recycled materials reduces both energy consumption and air pollution by ninety-five percent

Speaking of carbon emissions, there are specific uses of materials that combats them. In United States, housing alone takes 38 percent of the total carbon dioxide emissions (EPA). Carbon dioxide emission is one of the well-known factors that are blamed for the global warming. The famous Kyoto Protocol was established in order to limit this and also to achieve better results with global warming around the world. Choice of materials for constructions is thus carefully chosen from the planning stage, since once