Plastics represent the dominant source of single use packaging products globally, with inexpensive production costs. Every year 3 million tonnes of plastic waste are produced in Canada, with only 9% being recycled (1). The endpoint for the remaining 91% are landfills, or the natural environment, including lakes and rivers. Plastic waste is a major source of environmental damage by polluting water, damaging ecosystems, and harming animals that mistake microplastics for food.

Canada has taken a major step in tackling the problem of plastic pollution and waste by implementing a national single use plastic ban, which will be enforced in stages, coming into full affect in 2025. The ban is divided into six categories of single use plastic products to be phased out and replaced with sustainable, eco-friendly alternatives. The six categories include plastic grocery bags, food service ware for transporting take-out food, restaurant and fast-food cutlery, ring carriers for transporting beverages, stir sticks, and drinking straws. As of December 2023, sale of plastic grocery bags, food service ware, cutlery, stir sticks and straws will be prohibited in Canada, with the ban on manufacture, import and sale for export coming in December 2025 (2). 

The Canadian ban on single use plastics is an enormous step forward in the ultimate phase-out of plastics and plastic pollution mitigation, however a challenge with the ban on single use plastics is that individuals and large-scale businesses will have to source sustainable alternatives such as fabric grocery bags, metal water bottles, and food packaging in greater quantities. Research into Canadian-made sustainable alternatives shows that there are limited resources for sourcing these alternatives nationally, necessitating that businesses who require these products on a bulk scale will have to import these alternatives, often from producers overseas. With 95% of transportation energy generated by fossil fuels, and the transportation sector accounting for approximately a quarter of greenhouse gas emissions globally, the environmental damage caused by the transportation emissions associated with importation of alternatives to single use plastics would likely have a global impact equal to the continued use of single use plastics in Canada (3).

The Canadian ban on single use plastics utilizes a forward-thinking approach combined with immediate action necessary for the phase out of single use plastics and the reduction of plastic pollution. The Government of Canada has also created a guide to assist individuals and businesses in selecting sustainable alternatives to single use plastics (4), however it is necessary that infrastructure be implemented to allow public and private sector actors to source sustainable alternatives not only nationally, but locally, reducing transportation emissions to ensure not only the use of sustainable products, but a cycle of sustainable consumption and production as well.

Photo credit: F. Brown. Photo of single use plastics retrieved by the author during one of several clean ups at a bird sanctuary in Canada.

Sources:

1. Government of Canada, Environment and Climate Change Canada. April 2023.

Plastic waste and pollution reduction

https://www.canada.ca/en/environment-climate-change/services/managing-reducing-waste/reduce-plastic-waste.html#

2. Government of Canada, Environment and   Climate Change Canada. April 2023

Single-use Plastics Prohibition Regulations -      Overview

https://www.canada.ca/en/environment-climate-change/services/managing-reducing-waste/reduce-plastic-waste/single-use-plastic-overview.html

3. United Nations Transport Conference. Beijing 2021. Fact sheet Climate Change

https://www.un.org/sites/un2.un.org/files/media_gstc/FACT_SHEET_Climate_Change.pdf

4. Government of Canada, Environment and Climate Change Canada. 2022. Guidance for Selecting Alternatives to Single-use Plastics 

as defined in the Single-use Plastics Prohibition Regulations https://www.canada.ca/content/dam/eccc/documents/pdf/managing-plastic-waste/reducing-plastic-waste/Guidance%20for%20Selecting%20Alternatives%20to%20Single-use%20Plastics_EN.pdf