The Future of the Single-Use Plastics Ban

Plastic Bottles by Hans is licensed under the Pixabay License.

Canadians produce approximately 3 million tonnes of plastic waste every year, which represents up to $8 billion in lost value and severely pollutes Canada’s water. Thus, on June 10, 2019, the Canadian government announced its plans to ban single-use plastic items by the end of 2021. However, due to the COVID-19 pandemic, public reliance on single-use plastic items has increased, and the future of the ban on single-use plastic items rests on uncertain ground.  

Plastic Pollution in Canada

Canada does not contribute the highest share of mismanaged plastic waste in the world nor generate the most plastic waste per person. Nevertheless, Canada is still partly responsible for the prevalence of plastic pollution in the world. Although Canadians make up less than 0.5% of the global population, we still use 1.4% of all manufactured plastics. Moreover, only 9% of that will be recycled in the country, while 12% of Canada’s plastic waste will be shipped outside of North America to be “recycled” in Asia. Due to the lax environmental regulations of many Southeast Asian countries, Canada can pay less money to dispose of their trash by shipping their plastic waste to countries like Malaysia or the Philippines.  However, the plastic waste sent abroad usually ends up incinerated, in a landfill, or back in the environment, since many of these countries do not have the proper infrastructure to discard waste in an environmentally friendly way. Additionally, Canada’s actions perpetuate the practice of using Asian countries as the dumping grounds for the world’s excess plastic. While Canada offloads its plastic pollution to countries halfway across the world,  plastic pollution also threatens the well-being of its own water sources and citizens. For this reason, the government continues to maintain and expand on the Canadian Environmental Protection Act (CEPA). Passed in 1999, the Canadian Environmental Protection Act acknowledges that “the protection of the environment is essential to the well-being of Canadians” and Canada needs “to contribute to sustainable development through pollution prevention.” Specifically, CEPA allows the Canadian government to give an individual or group of individuals a notice to describe and implement a pollution prevention plan. Under the act, the government can assess and potentially limit or virtually eliminate environmentally unfriendly substances like coal. Even though the CEPA contains pollution prevention plans and regulations on toxic substances, an overwhelming amount of plastic waste persists in Canada. 

The Ban on Single-Use Plastic Items

In June 2018, the 44th G7 summit convened in Quebec, Canada, to discuss pressing global issues. The G7 is an organization made up of seven major, industrialized countries, considered to have the largest and most advanced economies:Canada, Japan, France, Germany, Italy, the United Kingdom, and the United States. At the 44th G7 summit, Canada, France, Germany, Italy, the United Kingdom, the European Union, and 21 other countries, signed the Oceans Plastic Charter. In the charter, Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau made a commitment that by 2040 all plastic produced in their respective countries would be reused, recycled, or burned to produce energy. In Canada, more than one-third of our plastics are created for single-use products or packaging. Therefore, in order to fulfill Canada’s commitment, Trudeau proposed a ban on single-use plastic items in 2019. The ban is two-fold. First, the government will prohibit certain single-use plastic items based on scientific evidence of harm to the environment. For example, Canadians use almost 15 billion plastic bags every year and close to 57 million straws every day. Due to their posed environmental threat, plastic bags and straws are two of the future disallowed items. Other proscribed single-use plastic items are stir sticks, six-pack rings, cutlery, and food containers made of hard-to-recycle plastic. Second, the ban includes the government’s goal to collaborate with the provinces and territories to better regulate companies that manufacture plastic products or sell items with plastic packaging, so these companies become more responsible for their plastic waste.

The Impact of COVID-19 on the Single-Use Plastics Ban

When the ban on single-use plastic items was proposed, the majority of Canadians supported the policy. In an Agri-Food Analytical  Lab (AAL) 2019 survey at Dalhousie University, 90% of Canadians hoped for stronger regulations on plastics in general, and 70% of the participants favoured the ban itself. However, public opinion started to change after the arrival of the COVID-19 pandemic. Around the middle of the pandemic in 2020, the AAL conducted another study in which they found that 29% of respondents felt like they were buying more plastic items, such as food packaging and meal kits. They were much more concerned about food safety than plastic usage. In general, the support for stronger regulations on plastics has fallen to 79%, while the support for the ban specifically is down to 58%. Another concern is PPE, or personal protective equipment, like face masks, that are single-use plastic items; however, the Canadian government affirmed that they would not place any restrictions on PPE. The general public is not the only group with newfound worries regarding the ban on single-use plastic items. Due to the pandemic, many Canadian restaurants are solely operating through take-out and delivery, so they rely on single-use plastics items such as cutlery to fulfill their orders. For this reason, some business advocacy groups are concerned that the ban may incur significant costs for small business owners. Small businesses and restaurants are struggling to survive the pandemic as it is, and the costs brought on by the plastic ban could finally push these businesses into shutting down. Furthermore, the federal Conservatives and the provincial government in Alberta also disapprove of the ban, insisting that single-use plastic items are necessary. In fact, Alberta Energy Minister Sonya Savage says, “plastics are the foundation of the modern world.” 

What’s Next for the Single-Use Plastics Ban

Despite the increase in pushback, Environment and Climate Change Minister Jonathan Wilkinson remains confident that Canada can achieve zero plastic waste by 2030. He argues that the selected single-use plastic items in the ban can be substituted by readily available and affordable alternatives such as cardboard and other paper forms. Furthermore, the ban on single-use plastic items is supported by the NDP and Green Party. However, the ban has not yet been implemented, and similar to NDP leader Jasmeet Singh, the general public is likely to still “want[s] to see the details.” Especially with regards to the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, Canadians will be more price and health-conscious than ever before when judging the plastic substitutes Wilkinson proposes. With or without COVID-19, though, Wilkinson seems determined to pass the single-use plastics ban as he investigates “solutions to recycle PPE where it is safe to do so, and options to make some of the PPE biodegradable.”