OTAWA –
Canada is creating a national registry to track plastic production and pollution, Environment Minister Steven Guilbeault said Monday, and Ottawa will host another round of negotiations for a global treaty to end plastic waste.
The talks, set to begin on Tuesday, seek to find an international agreement on how to tackle the global plastic habit, along similar lines to the 2015 Paris Agreement on climate change.
Guilbeault said one of the keys to making it work is for countries like Canada to have better control of the plastic we make and what happens to it.
Since 2022, Environment and Climate Change Canada has been consulting on developing a plastics registry, similar to how it tracks greenhouse gas emissions.
The registry will be progressively introduced over the next few years.
Guilbeault said this will make plastics producers more responsible for what they put on the market.
“What we aim to do with this registry is ensure that there is more transparency in Canada about the production and use of plastics,” he said.
“It’s hard to address a problem if you don’t know what it is, where it is, and what it’s used for.”
For years, Canada has asked industries to report the emissions they produce, and that data is a critical component of Canada’s annual reports on total emissions.
Guilbeault said the plastics registry will be similar. Companies that produce or import plastic into Canada will have to report each year how much they put on the market, along with the amount of plastic waste they generate.
That includes reporting on how much they send to recycle or reuse, versus how much is simply thrown away.
The registry will begin with plastic packaging, electronic products and single-use items and will eventually expand to include plastic resins, tires and plastic agricultural products.
Statistics Canada reported that 6.2 million tonnes of plastic were produced in Canada in 2019, more than a third of it for packaging alone.
Canada also estimates that more than four million tonnes of plastic ends up as waste each year, and less than a tenth of that amount is recycled.
The registry announcement is the first of several national steps Guilbeault is expected to take on plastics this week, as delegates from more than 170 countries flock to a convention center in downtown Ottawa to advance a global plastics treaty. .
Guilbeault, who was key in getting the U.N. to pass a motion in 2022 that launched the treaty talks process, said it’s a “once-in-a-generation opportunity.”
There is growing evidence of the physical damage caused by all the plastics we produce, as production has almost doubled in 20 years and plastic itself never goes away.
Instead, it breaks down into microplastic particles that end up in our water, our food, and our air.
Microplastics are linked to a range of health problems including hormonal disruptions, cancers and infertility.
The treaty is committed to attacking that problem.
“We are leaving a legacy of environmental disaster for future generations if we do not act,” Guilbeault said.
Inger Andersen, executive director of the United Nations Environment Programme, said Monday that a successful treaty must have clear, measurable goals, with specific timelines and an agreement that unnecessary, single-use plastics must be phased out. and problematic.
He also said recycling must be improved and the treaty must address “chemicals of concern,” a list of toxic chemicals used to make plastics that are dangerous to human health.
“We are on the verge of achieving a fair and ambitious treaty that addresses that entire life cycle,” he said.
The Ottawa talks are the fourth of five scheduled rounds. Previous talks were held in Uruguay in 2022, and in Paris and Kenya in 2023. The goal is that a treaty can be finalized by the end of this year, in the fifth round in South Korea.
Dr. Adil Najam, president of the World Wildlife Fund, said that if a comprehensive treaty is to be achieved by the end of the year, the Ottawa talks must reach agreement on the need to ban the most problematic plastics and chemicals.
Delegates must also agree to hold formal talks between the Ottawa negotiations and those scheduled for late November, Najam said.
Guilbeault said there are some areas where there is widespread agreement, including the ban on some single-use plastics and “chemicals of concern,” the need for plastics to contain more recycled content and the need for greater transparency in the Labeling so consumers know what is in the product. plastics they are buying.
What he said is still unclear is whether the treaty will include very specific elements, such as which chemicals to ban, or whether it is more of a framework with “details to come later.”
“I think this is still an area where countries need more time to discuss and exchange,” he said.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published April 22, 2024.