It might be time to say goodbye to plastic grocery bags, cutlery, straws and stir sticks. If the federal government has its way, these single-use plastics will be banned in Canada by the end of 2021.
Environment Minister Jonathan Wilkinson said Wednesday that the government is proposing to ban six commonly used plastic items as “harmful” substances. Wilkinson said the list was made based on evidence that these items are often not recycled and found littering the environment. They also have “readily available alternatives.”
On the list are plastic checkout bags, straws, stir sticks, six-pack rings, cutlery and “food ware made from hard-to-recycle plastics.”
The government will also name “plastic manufactured items” as a “toxic substance” under the Canadian Environmental Protection Act — a move that environmentalists have called for as a necessary step for the federal government to regulate plastics in Canada.
The government has been working on plastics restrictions for more than a year, and Wilkinson
told the Star in January that Ottawa would “likely” ban the single-use items named on Wednesday.
Prime Minister Justin Trudeau first
promised in June 2019 that his government would ban “harmful” single-use plastics. At the time, Trudeau said the move was necessary to preserve a clean environment for future generations. He also promised the move would create 42,000 jobs by forcing plastics producers to be responsible for funding recycling programs for the products they create, which the prime minister said would range from pop bottles and cellphones.
The government has set a goal to eliminate plastic waste in Canada by 2030.
Earlier this year, the Liberal government took another step toward its promised ban when bureaucrats at Environment Canada produced a
draft report on the science of plastics pollution.
Though the report highlighted how the evidence is incomplete, its authors conclude that plastic pollution is “everywhere” — from oceans to lakes to groundwater and soil, and even floats through the air and collects in clumps of household dust. An estimated one per cent of plastic produced in Canada — 29,000 metric tonnes of it — is dumped in the environment, the report said. That’s the equivalent weight of 213 blue whales.
Meanwhile, 86 per cent of it goes to landfills and only 9 per cent gets recycled, the report said.
It also highlighted evidence that “macroplastics” larger than five millimetres are harmful to birds, fish and other animals that ingest them or get tangled up and die; less is known about the environmental impact of tinier bits called “microplastics.”
At the time, Wilkinson said the research was solid enough to proceed with a ban on some single-use plastics.
Industry groups like the Retail Council of Canada and Canadian Federation of Independent Business have warned plastics bans could increase the cost of groceries and packaged goods. The Canadian Plastics Industry Association has also pushed back on the proposal, questioning whether replacing plastics with paper products could have worse environmental impacts.
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