Good afternoon, and thank you for this opportunity to participate in today's session.
Bill C-204 underscores an important consequence of waste, which is the growing problem of plastic waste in particular. As has been noted, it is estimated that more than 90% of Canada's plastic discards end up in disposal, which has significant economic, environmental and social implications. While this bill highlights the global nature of plastic waste and Canada's responsibility, simply banning its export does not address the root of the issue.
Some plastic discards are desirable commodities. Their use as inputs to replace virgin material in the production of new goods comes with important economic, environmental and social gains. However, some overseas markets that we have become dependent upon employ low environmental, health and safety standards.
In the world of recycling, not all plastics are created equal. Demand, supply and commodity values for different resin types have dramatic variances. Despite these variances, plastics are often managed as a single or homogeneous stream in order to make collection simple and cost-effective. Consequently, plastic exports are often co-mingled, combining several different plastic resin types that are brokered between sellers and buyers as bales or loads. Less desirable and low-grade plastics are mixed and sold with valuable resins that are ultimately cherry-picked away for recycling. Unwanted plastics are then disposed of. As such, what we think has been exported for recycling may, in part, actually end up in disposal or landfill.
Global demand for plastic discards has changed dramatically over the last several years, and as a result, so has the movement of these discards, with China and several other southeast Asian countries limiting purchases and controlling entrance of plastics to certain specific types. In addition, strict contamination standards are being applied, which puts pressure on Canadian collectors, both municipal and private, to vastly improve the source separation of materials. These new restrictions have stunned markets, with some collectors forced to landfill and others to pay for storage while waiting for restrictions to ease and markets to rebound.
Throughout these market unsettlements, analysts, policy-makers and local operators have scrambled for information in order to estimate impacts and explore remedies. This has revealed that a key barrier to reducing plastic waste and improving market conditions is the general lack of market information and reliable data. With no regulatory requirement for tracking plastic discards from points of generation to final disposition, it is simply impossible to fully understand the economic and environmental losses due to disposal or recycling markets, be they local or foreign.
The practice of sending plastic materials to other jurisdictions without reporting and management controls should be stopped. Becoming fully accountable for our plastic waste is critical, which starts with understanding its journey from point of origin to final destination, locally and globally.
It is my recommendation that Bill C-204 be amended to include mandatory reporting requirements to track materials between generators, collectors, and local and foreign processors. This information, centrally organized and freely available, will provide crucial information for policy development, market and industry intelligence, and public awareness.
Better data will provide a clearer understanding of the combined total amount of plastic discards generated and detail the resin types. It will identify, at a resin or product level, what discards are most successfully collected and actually recycled and which are lost to disposal or the environment.
Better data will allow policy-makers to identify plastic materials that are prevalent in the waste streams and identify the regulatory approaches that are appropriate and necessary, such as bans from sale, bans from disposal, expanded extended producer responsibility and other market stimulus approaches, such as mandating a certain amount of recycled content or including plastics in procurement specifications.
Better data will enable more information and improved conditions to attract investment to grow and let flourish our domestic recycling industry. It will provide market knowledge for brand holders and manufacturers to optimize post-consumer recycled content in product design, which spurs demand and increases material value of plastics that may otherwise be lost to disposal.
In closing, while it is critical to account for all waste, and plastics in particular, simply banning export does not effectively address either the full environmental consequences or the economic losses of disposal. Plastic waste is at its peak, and its chronic market volatility requires a multi-faceted policy approach, underpinned by good data that is continually monitored and measured.
Thank you.