Pay-as-you-throw fees and 4 more ways to reduce waste

‘It shouldn’t be free to pollute’: Charge for packaging, study suggests.

Reduce, Reuse and Rethink is a CBC News series about recycling. We’re exploring why our communities are at a turning point and exploring ways to recycle better. You can be part of the conversation by joining our Facebook group.

There are lots of ways to motivate everyone — including people who don’t care about the environment — to reduce their waste, says a new report from the Smart Prosperity Institute, an environmental-economic think-tank based at the University of Ottawa.

Those methods are mostly a matter of targeting people’s wallets and making polluters pay more, according the policy brief released last week.

“It shouldn’t be free to pollute,” says Katherine Monahan, senior research associate at the institute and lead author of the report.