The ban creates more rather than less waste. It gives Canadian consumers the false impression that they are helping save the oceans. And it imposes additional financial costs on Canadians, David Olive writes.
The federal government’s sweeping ban on plastics is shaping up as misguided, if not a fiasco. Ottawa’s Zero Plastic Waste 2023 initiative bans a wide range of plastic items including single-use plastic cutlery and disposable checkout bags and went into effect in 2021.
A federal court decision in November overturning the ban as unconstitutional drew attention to problems with this policy. Ottawa says it will appeal that ruling. “The body of scientific evidence showing the impacts on human health, on the environment, of plastic pollution is undebatable,” Steven Guilbeault, the federal environment minister, said in response to the court decision.
Yet reports on plastic bans in several jurisdictions have shown that they tend to increase pollution rather than reduce it. And one must ask, is this a problem that needs solving? Only about one per cent of Canada’s plastics waste leaks into the environment.
The rest goes to landfills (86 per cent), is recycled (nine per cent) or is burned for energy (four per cent), according to a 2019 report by the Library of Parliament, Global Marine Plastic Pollution.
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