According to Anthony Merante from the NGO Oceana, Canada produces over four million tons of plastic each year. "Canada generates two to four times more plastic waste per person compared to the global average," he stated. In 2020, more than 90 percent of plastic waste in the country ended up in landfills or was incinerated, with only seven percent being recycled, as reported by the Canadian Ministry of the Environment.
Additionally, around two percent, or 90,000 tons, of plastic waste has been released into the environment, contaminating ecosystems. "Plastic pollution is so pervasive that we cannot protect marine conservation areas from plastic pollution unless we stop it at the source," explained Merante, who leads Oceana's plastic campaign in Canada.
Global plastic production has also doubled in the last 20 years, reaching 460 million tons annually, according to the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD). Unfortunately, only nine percent of this amount is recycled. "More than half of it consists of single-use packaging—items that we use for only a short time but last for hundreds of years," Merante added.
In June 2022, the Canadian government, under Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, implemented a ban on six types of single-use plastics with the goal of achieving zero plastic waste by 2030. However, this regulation is currently being challenged in court by plastic manufacturers from Canada and the United States, as well as petrochemical companies.
Several cities, including Montreal, Vancouver, and Edmonton, have already banned certain single-use plastics. Anne-Marie Asselin, a marine biologist actively collecting waste around the Saint Lawrence River for the past five years, has noted changes. "We are finding more biodegradable utensils along the riverbank," she said. Although public behavior has not significantly changed, the type of waste produced now has a smaller impact on the environment.
The Canadian government is also working on creating a national plastics registry. The aim is to hold manufacturers accountable by requiring them to report on the lifecycle of the plastics they produce. However, in federal marine conservation areas, few measures have been implemented to tackle plastic pollution. Nevertheless, the Department of Fisheries and Oceans Canada states that plastic pollution is taken into account when creating new conservation areas, and since 2019, waste dumping in these areas has been prohibited.
Source: AFP
