The federal government announced a new registry to track plastic production to set the tone when negotiations on a Global Plastics Treaty begin April 23 in Ottawa.
“The Federal Plastics Registry is a practical tool that will help track plastics across the economy, inform future actions, and measure progress to reduce plastic waste and pollution,” said Environment and Climate Change Minister Steven Guilbeault. , in the press release announcing the registration. It will force plastic producers to monitor and trace plastic throughout its life cycle.
The NDP and advocacy groups have called for the registry as a necessary first step to addressing plastic pollution. However, the Liberals must do more to hold companies accountable, NDP MP Gord Johns said in a statement emailed to Canadian National Observer.
The NDP wants the federal government to limit plastic production and end federal subsidies to fossil fuel and petrochemical companies, Johns said.
“We really need to stop thinking that recycling is the way to go,” said Pui Yi Wong of the Basel Action Network in Malaysia at a press conference hosted by the federal NDP on April 22.
“Plastic recycling is contributing to plastic pollution,” he said, showing photographs of waste burning facilities and plastic landfills in Malaysia.
“When you send your plastic waste to Malaysia for recycling, you are essentially polluting our soil, our water, our air and our bodies, as well as our lives.”
Canada has not yet ratified an article of the Basel Convention that prohibits countries from exporting hazardous waste to developing countries, and sends most waste to the United States, which has well-documented experience. recorded audio of sending plastic waste to poor and developing countries.
Johns elaborate a movement calling on the government to negotiate a Global Plastics Treaty that will reduce global plastic production and close these export loopholes.
The federal government announced a new registry to track plastic production to set the tone when negotiations on a Global Plastics Treaty begin April 23 in Ottawa.
According to Environment and Climate Change Canada, less than 10 per cent of plastics in Canada are recycled. The rest ends up in landfills and all over the land and water.
Greenpeace and other groups want the treaty to set a target to reduce plastic production by at least 75 percent below 2019 levels by 2040.
“We are realizing that plastic is not really an inherently circular material. It is different from metals, it is different from paper. We have to stop production,” said Jim Puckett, CEO and founder of Basel Action Network.
While negotiations are underway, the Conservative Party will try to reverse some of the measures the federal government has taken to curb plastic pollution.
Conservative MP Corey Tochor has introduced a private member’s bill to repeal a section of Canada’s Environmental Protection Act that designates “articles made from plastic” as toxic. This designation is important because the federal government can regulate toxic products. Tochor’s bill is currently being debated for the first time in the House of Commons.
“Banning plastic is bad for people’s health. It’s bad for their pockets and, in fact, it’s bad for the environment,” Tochor said in the House of Commons on April 18. “Science shows that plastic is not toxic.”
Plastic pollution has well-documented impacts on human and environmental health. Microplastics accumulate in humans and animals, plastic waste causes air pollution when incinerated, and greenhouse gas emissions are released into the atmosphere when plastic is created.
“We might reasonably ask if conservatives have ever read a scientific study about this. To be clear, I am referring to independent studies conducted in places other than the laboratories of Dow Chemical or Imperial Oil,” Bloc Québécois MP Monique Pauzé said in French during the debate on Tochor’s bill.
“It embodies the denial of environmental issues by the official opposition” and years of scientific research, Pauzé said, criticizing the conservatives for “acting as political valets for the oil and petrochemical lobby,” which led a successful legal challenge against single-use plastics. prohibition.
Tochor said 95 percent of the plastic pollution that ends up in the oceans comes from 10 rivers: eight in Asia and two in Africa.
“Banning more and more plastics in Canada will not stop this problem,” he said, adding that the problem lies in developing countries that do not have a waste management program. His comments did not address Canada’s plastic export practices.
Tochor also said the federal government should cancel the “radical international meeting on banning plastics.”
At an April 22 press conference announcing the registry, Guilbeault highlighted other actions the government has taken, such as helping to “launch the ocean plastics charter during Canada’s G7 presidency in 2018” and national ban on harmful single-use plastics implemented in 2021. A Federal Court judge found the ban on plastic use unconstitutional, but while the federal government appeals the decision, the ban will remain in place. The Bloc Québécois supports the federal government’s decision to appeal the decision, Pauzé said.
The NDP pushed for a national strategy to tackle plastic pollution in 2018 when Johns introduced a motion (which passed) calling for a national strategy to combat plastic pollution. It included measures taken by the Liberal government, including a program that helps remove old fishing gear from the ocean. However, Johns noted that liberals don’t have restored funding for the program despite the importance of addressing “ghost equipment.”
The Department of Fisheries and Oceans responded to a request for comment but did not respond to whether or not funding for the program would be restored.