Thank you very much. I'm happy to be here today.
I'm with the Recycling Council of Alberta. We are a grassroots charitable organization. We've been operating in Alberta since 1987, but we work a lot with our colleagues across Canada as well.
Even though we are the Recycling Council of Alberta, our mission now is actually to promote, facilitate and advocate for a circular economy, not just recycling. We've had to make that change, as many organizations have, because we are faced now with the reality that we will never recycle our way out of this issue that we have today. We are recognizing that there is a new paradigm that we are all working within. It's a new paradigm both for the environment and for the economy. It is called the circular economy, and it can make a huge difference in terms of how we can achieve some of the things we want to achieve.
The circular economy really is about redefining a lot of things we've taken for granted. If you look at the circular economy principles, essentially the first step that we so often miss is that we need to redesign systems. We need to “design out” waste and we need to design out pollution so that we don't have that to deal with right from the start. Systems need to be designed right from the beginning to accomplish that.
Then, for the materials that we use within our economy, we need to make sure they operate at the highest order for as long as possible, so that we again, through design, have those materials within the economy for a longer period of time. Then, within all of this circular economy is a much more holistic notion, really, than recycling, in that all of this system within the circular economy really is about trying to regenerate natural systems rather than breaking them down. The ultimate imperative is a healthier environment, and that's certainly one of the things the circular economy tries to achieve.
There are some really interesting business models the circular economy embraces, and they are things you've definitely heard about, like product life extensions. Also, there's “product as a service”, and that is really taking the economy by storm, as well as sharing platforms and things like tool libraries, so that we don't all have to have one of everything but instead can embrace materials and products as a society and share them with each other. This has not only environmental but social benefits as well.
At the recycling council, we launched a program across Canada called the circular cities and regions initiative. We looked at how a circular economy can be developed at the municipal level. We did that because so many things happen at the municipal level. It's a very robust part of our economy. Municipalities have a lot of ability to do a lot of things and create a lot of new policies and really change the climate.
I've had some real success across the country with bringing some of these communities together. We've had communities everywhere, from a few hundred right up to half a million, that have worked within this initiative. They are from all the provinces and at least one territory, and in both languages, so this is something that we're very proud of and want to continue.
I also wanted to mention that within a circular economy, speaking of policy, one of the key policies that's really important is “extended producer responsibility”. This is a policy that has been adopted by virtually every province across the country and now by the territories as well. Essentially, extended producer responsibility puts the responsibility back on the producer of the product and the material. That is a very strong benefit, because they are the ones that are most able to bring that material back into the system through a circular economy.
We really embrace EPR across all the provinces and all materials, but the one thing I will say about EPR is that to this point we have applied EPR only to residential materials when it comes to packaging. We need to broaden that again to make it more holistic, and we need to embrace all sectors, including the commercial sector.
That's just a summary of our beliefs around a circular economy.
Thank you very much. I look forward to questions.