Tuesday, September 16, 2008

Great Work Everyone...

It takes a lot of work by everyone to be the tops at anything and in this case every Islander seems to be helping out but I suspect that some people at the Department of Environment, Superior Sanitation, and all our retailers are a huge part of our success. Kudos to everyone for helping out with our environment...
PEI leads Canada with highest plastic bag recycling rate in North America
The Guardian (September 16, 2008) – Prince Edward Island has the highest plastic bag recycling rate in North America - 57 per cent, says a press release from Inteplast, the largest plastic bag manufacturer in Atlantic Canada.“Today, All other provinces are now scrambling to catch up,” said the release.In 1988, Inteplast introduced an experimental, closed-loop bag-to-bag recycling program, said the release.Inteplast's recycling system sees Inteplast-made plastic shopping bags used, and then collected from retailers. They are then sent back to Inteplast where they are remade into new plastic shopping bags and returned to retailers for use. “The bag-to-bag program has been an outstanding success in dramatically decreasing the number of bags going to landfill,” says the company. “Since 1988, 100 MILLION POUNDS OF PLASTIC have been recycled in Inteplast's closed-loop bag recycling system. That's about 6 million pounds in PEI.”"This closed-loop recycling system is environmental stewardship at its finest," said Terry Ricketts of Inteplast.. "From just a handful of stores participating in 1988, we now have the cooperation of all of the major grocery retailers in the Region - Atlantic Wholesalers, Co-op Atlantic Stores and Sobey's. Some 200 stores across Atlantic Canada, including 17 in PEI, now offer at-store bag recycling.” Other provinces in Canada have followed Atlantic Canada's lead. In the early 1990s, British Columbia put in place a network of progressive retailers willing to participate. Over the next 15 years, other provinces have followed suit with Ontario only now beginning to introduce the program."The people of PEI can take considerable pride in that they lead the country on plastic bag product stewardship," said Duncan Cross, Environment and Plastics Industry Council (EPIC) Municipal Representative. "Those who are uninformed claim that these bags are used once and then end up in landfill. That couldn't be further from the truth.

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