Science and Research Committee on June 18th, 2024

[Maxime Blanchette-Joncas, Bloc, Rimouski-Neigette—Témiscouata—Les Basques, QC]

Okay.

As far as you're concerned, on a scale of 1 to 10, what would you say about the achievement of the objectives of the Department of the Environment and the federal government?

[Dany Drouin]

In fact, the examples I gave you are a good example of the federal government's contribution at the pan‑Canadian level under the CCME. There are others as well, such as the measures that have been taken to remove ghost fishing gear from the ocean.

In terms of achieving zero plastic waste by 2030, let me start by saying that progress has been made. For example, the single‑use plastics ban regulations will remove about 3% of pollution and 5% of waste. So there's an upward trajectory.

We still need to adopt more measures, if that's your question.

[Maxime Blanchette-Joncas, Bloc, Rimouski-Neigette—Témiscouata—Les Basques, QC]

Mr. Drouin, I don't understand one thing.

In a February 2024 report, the Commissioner of the Environment and Sustainable Development said the following:

… led by Environment and Climate Change Canada began implementing activities to contribute to the Canada‑wide goal of reaching zero plastic waste by 2030.

What's important is that he goes on to say:

However, they still had not gathered all the information needed on plastic waste and had not yet fully established the targets and monitoring systems to track their progress against the goal. Until this is done, they will not know whether they are on track to meet the goal.

So I understand that we have invested in something, but we don't know if it's good. We aren't able to measure it. That's what the report tells us.

You're telling me that progress has been made, but an independent report tells us that you don't have a complete picture that would allow you to measure the achievement of your objectives. This is serious.

[Dany Drouin]

The department responded to the commissioner that it agreed with the proposed recommendations that more details on the measures taken were necessary.

Some things are already in place. For example, there was the announcement of the federal plastics registry, which the commissioner called a step in the right direction. Statistics Canada's annual reports also provide us with information. Work is also under way to prepare a progress report.

[Maxime Blanchette-Joncas, Bloc, Rimouski-Neigette—Témiscouata—Les Basques, QC]

I have a simple question for you.

Is the federal plastics registry mandatory?

[Dany Drouin]

Yes.

[Maxime Blanchette-Joncas, Bloc, Rimouski-Neigette—Témiscouata—Les Basques, QC]

Who is responsible for monitoring to ensure that all businesses in all economic sectors do so?

[Dany Drouin]

The registry—

[The Chair, Liberal, Valerie Bradford]

I'm sorry. I'm afraid that's a bit over our time. Perhaps in the next round—

[Maxime Blanchette-Joncas, Bloc, Rimouski-Neigette—Témiscouata—Les Basques, QC]

I would like a written answer, Madam Chair.

[The Chair, Liberal, Valerie Bradford]

Okay.

We'll now turn to MP Cannings for his six-minute round.

[Richard Cannings, NDP, South Okanagan—West Kootenay, BC]

Thank you to the witnesses for being here with us today.

I've met with the plastics industry once a year for, I would imagine, the last six or seven years. I remember that before the new environmental protection act came into place, they were very concerned about the measures for plastics. They said they didn't need this; they could set up a circular environment where plastics would be recycled and reused.

I'm looking at a paper, “Canada’s Zero Plastics Packaging Waste Report Card”, which came out last fall. It was submitted to Environmental Defence Canada. It's pretty depressing. Looking out to 2030—and I think Monsieur Blanchette-Joncas mentioned some of these numbers—if we keep doing what we're doing, even with the improvements you talked about, we will still be throwing out two million tonnes of plastics every year in Canada. About 88% of the plastics used in Canada will literally be thrown away.

You mentioned co-operation with the provinces. You mentioned extended producer responsibility and what the industry is doing. How is that going? Let's start with the industry. What role do you think the industry should be playing here? I think British Columbia has some EPR regulations and has a system in place. How are the rest of the provinces doing in that regard?

[Dany Drouin]

EPR is being rolled out across the country. British Columbia has the more mature system in place, but there's also Quebec, Ontario, Alberta, Yukon and the Atlantic provinces. There's quite a lot of development on EPR, which is essentially about transferring the responsibility and cost of managing the end of life of a product from the communities to the private sector.

An expansion of the EPR programs across the country is happening. There are two gaps. One gap is in harmonization. They do not all look the same. For the industry, that makes it more difficult for them to comply with different sets of systems. That's what we're working on with the CCME. The other gap is the geographic gap in the types of products covered.

The industry has an important role to play. They do control important levers that will make plastics easy to manage. They are recognizing it through, for example, the Canada Plastics Pact. In terms of reducing the complexity of plastics packaging so that it's easier to recycle, sometimes it's multi-layered or has a lot of additives. That makes it very hard to recycle.

The report, which my colleague from Environmental Defence Canada will be able to speak more about afterwards, shows that voluntary actions alone won't work. There's a need for jurisdictions to mandate some requirements.

[Richard Cannings, NDP, South Okanagan—West Kootenay, BC]

I noticed that too. I'm from British Columbia. I end up filling half my suitcase with plastic when I go home from Ottawa, because I can recycle it at home and can't recycle it here. However, even when I'm recycling at home, I wonder about it. We seem to have a good plastics recycling thing in British Columbia. A lot of it is voluntary, but they try to make it as easy as possible. I wonder how much of it is being recycled. You hear all sorts of horror stories about recycling going to landfills.

How is that system working there? How could we improve the whole recycling ecosystem?

[Dany Drouin]

Landfilling is a real issue because it's an economic loss happening on a large scale. The pollution is important. The federation works through shared jurisdiction. Municipalities operate the landfills and, on top of that, the provinces and territories legislate the EPRs and the operations. The federal government has some role or is sometimes best placed to, for example, set recycling content mandates, which is an incentive to recycle more. That will drive investment in the recycling facility.

What is currently happening with the extended producer responsibility programs has a lot of promise, and jurisdictions are learning from each other as well. B.C., as I mentioned, being one of the more mature systems, is a key contributor. Quebec is launching a new plan. Learning from them and looking at ways to make it easier for industry to comply, without a patchwork of systems in place, could be very useful for the country.

[The Chair, Liberal, Valerie Bradford]

That's your time. Thank you very much.

For the second round, we'll begin with MP Tochor for five minutes.

[Corey Tochor, Conservative, Saskatoon—University, SK]

Thank you very much.

Is the problem with plastic or is it with how consumers are utilizing the plastic?

[Dany Drouin]

It is somewhat unfair to put the problem on the shoulders of Canadians when, for example, it's very hard to understand what they buy and what they can do with it. Should it go in the garbage? Should it go into the recycle bin? Can it be reused?

[Corey Tochor, Conservative, Saskatoon—University, SK]

Stop there for a moment. Whether it goes into the garbage bin or the recycling bin, if plastic ultimately ends up right now in those two bins, that's not the plastic causing problems in the environment. Is that correct?

[Dany Drouin]

There are leakages across the recycling stream or the waste stream. When you put something in your blue box, there's going to be wind and water, so some of the bags will fall off the truck. There will be other leakages as well. When you get into the recycling facilities, there are a lot of plastics around them because the bales are being washed out by rain or wind. At the end of the day—

[Corey Tochor, Conservative, Saskatoon—University, SK]

I'm going to cut you off here, but we can get back to that.

Isn't it just that we need better policies on the transportation of waste and its handling at the waste sites, then? Wouldn't that fix the problem versus banning?

[Dany Drouin]

The transportation is one problem, but then there's a lack of sorting in the recycling facilities. Something you put in your blue box that gets to that point will go to a landfill if they have trouble sorting it and separating where it should go. The big problem—

[Corey Tochor, Conservative, Saskatoon—University, SK]

I'll stop you there.

What's the problem if it ends up in the landfill, though? I want to recycle that molecule as many times as possible, but in the examples you gave about plastics in the environment from transportation and processing facilities, it seems like if we just had better quality control, we wouldn't have a problem. Wouldn't that be a common-sense approach versus trying to change the whole system of plastics?

[Dany Drouin]

The root of the issue that you're after is the economic value of this material. The higher the value, the more incentive there is for the industry to recycle it. That's the purpose of the EPR program and the recycled content mandates, which will give more economic value to the recycled resin. That is the biggest issue we face in the plastics economy.

As to when plastics get into a landfill, in 2019 alone there was an economic loss of $8 billion. There's a lot of opportunity in putting that $8 billion back into the economy. There's also pollution coming from landfills. You see birds and animals going into landfills, and they can choke by ingesting pieces of plastic, for example.

[Corey Tochor, Conservative, Saskatoon—University, SK]

It appears that processes can be improved, and there are ways of minimizing the leakage into the environment. No one wants to see plastics out there.

How did you come up with 40,000 tonnes of plastics being in the environment every year?