Waste Management & The Circular Economy in Canada: An Analysis of Policy Layering
Date
2023-09-18
Authors
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Publisher
ORCID
Type
Thesis
Degree Level
Masters
Abstract
Waste has become intrinsic to everyday life, where the average person throws away packaging or products no longer needed on a regular basis and does not know much about the rest of the item’s life cycle or where it came from originally. However, waste management is increasingly becoming one of the most challenging responsibilities of jurisdictions around the world. With the costs of maintaining operable waste management systems, such as landfilling and recycling, rising at the same time as environmental and socio-economic pressures, innovative solutions are needed. An answer that is becoming increasingly popular is the circular economy, which closes the loop of the linear business model by minimizing the input of new, raw materials and resources. This is achieved through designing products for reducing, reusing, or recycling as much as possible instead of jumping to the traditional ways of waste management. While many countries, industries, and advocacy organizations have already implemented some circular policies, little is known about an optimal design. Much of the literature speaks of the need for a paradigm shift to achieve a circular economy. Given the well known difficulties of bringing about such a shift, I investigated Canadian provincial policy instruments used to generate the circular economy to discover whether incremental first and second order policy changes are bringing about policy designs that promote circularity. Focusing primarily on the provinces of Saskatchewan (Western region), Ontario (Eastern region), and Nova Scotia (Atlantic region) in Canada, I have evaluated the shift from waste management to waste reduction to circular economy using the full spectrum of policy changes from patching to packaging.
Description
Keywords
circular economy, circular economy policy, waste management, extended producer responsibility, layering
Citation
Degree
Master of Public Policy (M.P.P.)
Department
Johnson-Shoyama Graduate School of Public Policy
Program
Public Policy