This is a story about sloppy journalism, about quoting from a ‘study’ that never existed, and falsely using data that’s now 22 years old. It’s a case study in how not to do journalism.
The story begins in 2019 when Global News and others[i] spread word far and wide that Canadians were tossing some 540,000 tonnes of Christmas wrapping paper into landfills, the equivalent weight of 100,000 elephants. The elephant image really took off. The big number and the elephants were everywhere: in the Canadian Press news feeds, in the Globe and Mail, the Toronto Star, and on radio. And just last week on Christmas Eve, some five years later, Global News raised the image of the 100,000 elephants once again[ii].
When I first addressed this issue five years ago, the immediate red flag was the enormous tonnage number because I knew the total amount of wrapping paper used in Canada was only one-tenth of that. Something was definitely off there. The second red flag was the difficulty in tracking down the source of the data. The media was claiming its source was the advocacy group Zero Waste Canada and a “2017 study” it had done.
But when I contacted Zero Waste Canada, I was told there was no such study, not even a press release. What had happened, said Barb Hetherington, had just seemed “to morph over (the) news services.’’ In fact, she said, the information the media was now quoting had been used in a Christmas blog that had been written several years ago, with the original statistics coming from the Recycling Council of British Columbia (RCBC).
What? There was no study? Several years ago? The media was quoting numbers from a study that didn’t exist? What was going on here? I managed to track down the RCBC press release but no source was given for the information. And guess what? The date of the press release was way back in 2007.
It got worse. I managed to track down an even earlier claim by the Regional District of Nanaimo, B.C. It used the same 540,000 tonnage number and the article was dated 2002. That’s 22 years ago! And we’re still imagining the elephants! And yes, no source was given for the data.
Why hadn’t the media checked out the “study” for themselves instead of just grabbing for an easy headline (the elephants)? This whole sorry episode raises serious questions about how people access information and report on it. It certainly does not make journalists look good.
In sharing my story with an industry expert, we suspect what happened here is that someone saw some industry statistics on the consumption of wrapping paper in Canada back in 2002 and jumped to a false conclusion. Those particular statistics showed what was sold to customers (not landfilled) and included all multi-wall sacks and bags produced in Canada to hold flour, cement, pet food, and other food wrapping.
If our suspicion is correct, this would explain the high number (the 540,000 tonnes). But it certainly doesn’t explain how the media handled this information way back in 2002 and then somehow regurgitated (and mangled it) some 17 years later, and has now resurrected it again in 2024.
This is truly an elephant joke that makes you want to cry. And by the way, most wrapping paper can be re-used or recycled. The only stuff recycling mills don’t like is paper that’s been metallicized or has glitter on it. This story certainly doesn’t have any of that.
[i] John Mullinder, Little Green Lies and Other BS: From “Ancient” Forests to “Zero” Waste, 2021, Chapter 35, Xmas Paper, “The elephant joke that makes you want to cry,” www.johnmullinder.ca Media who ran this story back in 2019 included Global News, The Canadian Press, Toronto Star, Narcity.com, Rock95.com, Globe and Mail.
[ii] Katie Dangerfield, Global News, December 24, 2024, “Can you recycle Christmas wrapping paper, bows, and tissues? What to know.” Dangerfield asks the right questions but, unfortunately for her, quotes an earlier story by Olivia Bowden of Global News on the “2017 study”. https://globalnews.ca/news/10931495/recycle-christmas-wrapping-paper-bows-ties/