Thank you for the invitation to speak today. I would like to applaud you for being leaders in our national community and making space for this discussion on plastic pollution.
I am Dr. Love-Ese Chile. I'm a researcher and consultant at my company Grey to Green Sustainable Solutions. Over the last seven-plus years I have been building my expertise in sustainable science, green chemistry, biodegradable plastics. My research explores science and develops the technology that will help sustainable plastics circulate within our local economies. In my work as a consultant, I spend a significant amount of time bringing understanding to stakeholders about the role of sustainable plastics. I have worked with non-profits and businesses, and give many public lectures about how we can collectively take steps to reduce plastic waste by making more conscious decisions about plastics.
You have heard many voices in this standing committee, voices that talk about the benefits of plastic use and how they've supported the huge advancement of our society and will continue to support us in the future. You have also heard about the devastating environmental crisis that has been caused by the unfettered discharge of these materials into our ecosystems. We're here today for the solutions. How can we start to turn the tide on plastics? Many groups are here talking about their one piece of the puzzle and wondering how they can all come together to make the whole, but I urge us to think about the problem in the opposite way. What system do we envision, and how can we align these pieces to make it happen?
This is a conversation I often have, and I like to centre myself in the tenets of sustainability. Sustainability is complex and very situation dependent. There are no one-size-fits-all solutions, and that's been heard a lot in these discussions. We have many technologies in our tool box, both established and new, different types of plastics, different recovery methods and different metrics. We can use all these in the variety of situations we find ourselves in to make sustainable plastic choices. This will make up the bulk of my remarks today.
First I think it's important to take a step back and to clarify exactly what we mean by “plastics”. One thing I say in my lectures is that all plastics are polymers but not all polymers are plastics. Polymers are the long-chain molecules that make up plastics. However, the term “plastic” is a description of behaviour that has become synonymous with the materials we use every day. But polymers can show many types of behaviour.
Plastics are deformable, they can be heated and remoulded. Rubbers and elastics can be re-formed, but the molecular structure makes them unable to be re-formed when broken. Resins, adhesives and lubricants are struck in their structure, and they can’t be re-formed either. Very few of these materials are recyclable and they also have very little value at the end of their lifetimes. This means that the conversation about plastic pollution should be extended to encompass all polymers.
Even if we only focus on plastic polymer products there's another level of complexity when it comes to the length of the use of these materials. Conversations are very focused on single-use products. These are things you use for less than one day. They often come in contact with food and other organic matter, making useful separation very difficult. These are things like food service items, agricultural mulch, food packaging. We can also think about short-term use products and packaging. These are things used for less than one month, for example. These come in contact with liquids, gels and powders. You can think about things like shampoo containers, cleaning supplies, toothpaste tubes. We also have consumer products used for one month plus, everyday products like toothbrushes, clothing, storage containers, outdoor furniture. Then finally we have the advanced engineering plastics, things used in long-term, highly durable and very targeted applications. These are plastics used in your computers, your automobiles, high-tech devices and medicine.
So we have four broad categories of plastic polymer products. Each of these have different technical requirements. They have different interactions with consumers, and need different ways to manage their waste. To truly change the conversation on plastics we need to reframe the way we value these resources and improve the systems that handle them.
I mentioned we have many tools in our tool box. These include things like circular economy, bioeconomy, sustainable materials management, zero waste, life-cycle analysis, cradle-to-cradle design, industrial symbiosis, compostable and biodegradable plastics. These tools can be used in combination or by themselves in different scenarios to trace the most sustainable course of action. However, we need to be aware that the system we currently operate in is not perfect and what is sustainable today may not be sustainable tomorrow.
A framework that we're all familiar with is the five Rs: reduce, reuse, recirculate, recycle, recover.
Reduce is the first and the hardest. Our social and cultural norms are at the centre of plastic pollution. Zero waste initiatives and problematic plastic bans challenge the core assumption that we need all these things. We need to support these steps and make policies that harmonize the conversation across the whole country so that Canadians and business operators know that this is now what we call normal.
Reusing, repairing and redesigning products so their components can be reused and recycled and implementing recycled content targets will all help maintain the value of our resources for longer and build the end markets we need to make these options economically viable.
I'll skip ahead to talk about recirculating, that is, redesigning our industries so they circulate in a circular economy; recycling, not just conventional mechanical recycling, but advanced chemical recycling; and also biological recycling in the form of composting and anaerobic digestion.
One tool in our tool box that hasn't been discussed very often is the idea of the bioeconomy. This is trying to separate our plastic production from the consumption of fossil fuels. This has led to the development of bio-derived plastics made from biological feedstocks, which can be designed to be either recyclable or biodegradable.
There are many voices in this conversation with vested interests in the status quo, and this can feed into the discussion as to whether compostable or recyclable is better. My view is that both have a place in this conversation as long as they're both supported by the development of infrastructure and open communication among producers, consumers and policy-makers.
I'll close by saying that sustainability is inherently complicated. Sustainability for food packaging will look different to sustainability for toothbrush manufacturing, and it's important to have a clear vision of what we want our plastics economy to look like.
I thank you for this opportunity to speak, and I look forward to answering your questions and expanding on some of the things I've said today.