(Ottawa) Canada will ban businesses from importing or manufacturing plastic bags and polystyrene take-out containers by the end of this year, their sale by the end of 2023 and their export by the end of this year. end of 2025.
Posted at 9:52
Federal Environment Minister Steven Guilbeault and other Liberal ministers and MPs made the announcement Monday at a series of press conferences across the country. Mr. Guilbeault was in Quebec, alongside the Minister of Health Jean-Yves Duclos.
Only six specific manufactured plastic items will be affected by the initial ban, after the government determined they were difficult to recycle and could be easily replaced. These include the straws, to-go containers, grocery bags, lids, stir sticks and plastic rings used to hold six cans or bottles together.
However, an exception is made for straws intended for people with specific needs.
Last year, the federal government classified plastics as toxic under the Canadian Environmental Protection Actwhich paved the way for regulations to ban some.
However, a consortium of plastics producers is suing the government over the decision. The case is expected to be heard later this year.
The text of the regulation to ban six plastic items was published in December and the government must be given a phase-in period of at least six months once the final regulation is published this month.
The move comes nearly three years after Prime Minister Justin Trudeau first pledged that his government would phase out the production and use of hard-to-recycle plastic items as it pursues the goal of zero plastic waste. by the end of the decade.
The prime minister initially claimed the ban would come into effect in 2021, but the scientific assessment of plastics that was needed to put the ban into motion has been delayed by the COVID-19 pandemic.
Following this assessment, which was finalized in October 2020, the government designated manufactured plastics as toxic under the Canadian Environmental Protection Act. This designation was necessary before items could be prohibited.
In May 2021, a coalition of plastics manufacturers sued the Government of Canada to counter this designation; the case is due to be heard later this year.
Plastic waste is a growing problem around the world, with around 10% or less of most manufactured plastics being recycled.
A study published by Environment and Climate Change Canada in 2019 found that 3.3 million tonnes of plastic were thrown away, almost half of which was plastic packaging. Most plastic items end up in landfills, where it will take hundreds of years for them to decompose.
An estimated 29,000 tonnes ended up as plastic pollution, littering parks, forests, waterways and shorelines with cigarette butts, food wrappers and disposable coffee cups.
The Great Canadian Shoreline Cleanup project in 2019 removed over 163,000 kilograms of plastic waste from nearly 4,000 kilometers of shoreline across Canada.
Federal data shows that in 2019, 15.5 billion plastic grocery bags, 4.5 billion plastic lids, 5.8 billion straws, 183 million rings holding six cans or bottles together and 805 million take-out containers have been sold in Canada.
Newfoundland and Labrador, Prince Edward Island and Nova Scotia have already taken their own action against plastic bags, as have some cities, including Regina and Montreal.
Some retailers also acted faster than the government. Many fast food outlets have also replaced plastic straws with paper versions.