I agree with you that it is very common to see people misplace plastic products everywhere. It happens all the time. We walk down a beach, and there's garbage everywhere.
I do think, though, that as elected officials, you should be meeting your population where they are, at that point. Laying the blame on the consumer is not the right approach to take. There is partial blame, and I agree with that 100%, but it is not the vast majority.
I think it would be very hard for most Canadians to walk down the grocery aisle and not find packaging that is confusing and only plastic. Growing up, I used to be able to buy baby food in glass and metal. It didn't matter where I threw that. It got recycled. A lot of things used to be unpackaged. Now I have to figure out whether my flexible plastic—because I've been taught plastic is recyclable—is recyclable, and in my province, it is not. It will get burned or it will go to landfill.
We need to meet in the middle here. The products that are simply very confusing, harmful to our health, single-use or just not durable or viable will just end up in the garbage.
That is where regulation should come into play. You should present durable, quality products to people. On that level, once you do have these quality products on the market...because there's no denying that something like berries—unless they're very fresh and you get them in a nice little plastic pouch or paper pouch—have to come in a PET thing to transport them over long distances from California in the winter. They require that, but we need to have labels that are—