Just announced!
Canada will ban harmful single use plastics as early as 2021.
(e.g. cigarette butts, plastic bags, straws, stir sticks, cutlery, cups)
We’ll work with the provinces and territories to ensure companies, like large food retailers and product manufacturers, pay the full cost of collecting and recycling their plastic waste (extended producer responsibility). This would fully transfer the recycling cost from the municipalities, to the companies that generate the waste.
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Canadians deeply care about the environment. And if you’ve taken part in a beach clean up, you know the problem we have with plastics. As a country, we’re throwing away millions of tonnes of plastic each year. And if we don’t take serious action, plastic could outweigh the fish in our oceans by 2050—a frightening statistic.
As you know, Canada banned plastic microbeads in products. And in 2018 we adopted the Oceans Plastics Charter to address plastic waste globally. Although these are good actions, there is a lot more we must do. A lot more we will do.
As a Member of the Standing Committee on Environment and Sustainable Development, I’ve heard first-hand that Canada can take meaningful, strong action, to address this problem.
Later today, we’ll announce Canada’s next steps to beat plastic pollution.
