Good afternoon, everyone.
Éco Entreprises Québec is a private non-profit organization that represents companies in their responsibility to fund the net cost of municipal curbside recycling services. There are organizations like ours in other provinces aside from Quebec.
The mandate of Éco Entreprises Québec falls under the principle of extended producer responsibility and, for 13 years, our organization has been redoubling its efforts to push the limits of circularity in the recycling system.
We have submitted a brief for today's meeting, in which we address certain concerns and make recommendations on the four points of discussion. I will try to summarize them.
The first point raised is that of restrictions targeting certain single-use non-recyclable plastics and the industry's use of additives in the masterbatch. The use of additives, ink, mineral fillers and other products in plastic packaging is clearly problematic for their recyclability because there is a lack of transparency on that packaging's composition. The masterbatch is at the core of protection of packaged products, so the industry's use of additives in the manufacturing of packaging is not innocuous. There is also the whole issue of colour, as any pigmented plastic resin will be difficult to recycle or its mechanical recyclability will be limited.
We mustn't also forget the difficulties related to production costs and to the properties of plastic, which is a multi-use material. However, every polymer recycling cycle comes with a drop in quality of the resin in terms of its technical and aesthetic properties.
That is one of the reasons why Éco Entreprises Québec organized in early February, in Paris, a forum on plastic solutions with Citeo, our counterpart organization in France. That forum brought together more than 400 participants, including industry leaders, packaging manufacturers, businesses that market packaged products, recyclers, sorting centres and processors. To use the words of Mr. Downham, the objective was to bring all the system stakeholders to the same table to find solutions for plastics recycling, starting with the packaging design stage.
Encouraging businesses to use recycled content in plastic packaging would help stimulate local economies by creating local opportunities for plastic resins, while reducing the exporting of those materials. The use of recycled content presupposes access to quality materials that are recycled at a good price and whose supply is stable. As long as virgin material remains less expensive than recycled material, businesses will use virgin material, especially since recycled material has not yet become popular in people's minds.
I want to point out that, in 2009, Éco Entreprises Québec was the first environmental organization in the world to implement a credit for the recycled content of certain types of printed materials and certain types of plastic packaging, including PET and HDPE.
The issue we are discussing today is plastic, but I want to tell you that our organization is also interested in other materials. As Mr. Downham pointed out, fibre or glass packaging also presents challenges, and so the system should be addressed as a whole, with all its complexity.
Éco Entreprises Québec is very involved in innovation. About 40 individuals are supporting packaging ecodesign businesses, and we are providing training and personalized support. We are helping municipalities achieve a good PE—performance, effectiveness—factor for their activities of collection, sorting, and recycling of recyclable materials. We are also investing in sorting centres to improve their technology, in addition to supporting the creation of local opportunities.
In order to reduce the presence of ink and additives in packaging, a better job must be done of targeting businesses that design them. We have to start by reviewing the protection provided by that packaging, while avoiding its weakening by eliminating certain important additives, which could lead to more food waste or product breakage.
When it comes to the last point, innovation, it is important to encourage knowledge transfer and to build bridges between provinces and various administrations. I know that the federal government already has experience with providing training.
Let's take the example of plastic microbeads. We are supporting many businesses in that process. Similar programs should be developed. It is not enough to focus on single-use plastic packaging. The problem related to plastics is much more complex. The circularity of plastics must be understood. Plastic used for the first time in packaging can have a second life as a textile or a sustainable product, such as street furniture.
We should consider the system with open loops and determine whether recycled resin can supply other activity sectors, especially in packaging. It should be understood that some health and safety issues are involved. Polyethylene terephthalate, or PET, is the only resin that is currently subject to a no-objection letter regarding its use in the manufacturing of packaging in contact with food. So it is impossible to integrate recycled content into food packaging composed of other types of plastic resins.
We recommend that this innovation be financially supported. Mr. Downham provided some examples earlier. In the area of molecular recycling, businesses are starting up. There are some great ones in Canada that are performing very well on the global stage, and it is important to support them. After all, molecular and chemical recycling has been a promising option that has complemented the mechanical recycling of plastics for a number of years.
I agree with Mr. Downham that things must be considered in a global context, at least for the North American market, as material movement goes beyond Canadian borders.
Those are the various points I wanted to present to you.