Good afternoon, everyone.
Thank you for inviting me to appear before your committee.
I am Sophie Langlois-Blouin, vice-president of RECYC-QUÉBEC. I am responsible for operations.
RECYC-QUÉBEC is a government corporation that reports to the Minister of the Environment and works every day to reduce, reuse and recycle as much material as possible by guiding both citizens, municipalities and businesses in the adoption of responsible production and consumption practices. Our vision is to make Quebec a waste-free society.
You are studying the issue of plastics and single-use products. This is an issue in which RECYC-QUÉBEC has been very active for many years. All of our interventions, whether for plastics or other materials, are essentially based on the 3RV hierarchy, which you may be familiar with. So our main actions touch on reduction at source and reuse.
Over the past year, RECYC-QUÉBEC has offered financial support to concrete projects that reduce plastics and single-use products. Ten projects were selected last February, in 10 regions of Quebec, for just under $900,000.
I would say that there is genuine enthusiasm on the part of citizens, businesses and municipalities, who want to make the transition and reduce plastic or single-use products at the source. These can be completely eliminated by raising awareness. There is a buy-in to this kind of initiative. It is very important for us to continue to support and document this. We are also working to promote reuse, which is the transition to sustainable products. It's about moving away from single-use and disposable products. We've prepared different information sheets on that.
We've also done outreach in the past to show that not only are there environmental benefits from reducing plastic or single-use products and using reusable products, but also economic benefits. It's important to talk about this. Businesses and merchants that make the transition to sustainable products can quickly see savings, especially in their acquisitions.
More and more new companies and business models are emerging. The Quebec example I want to talk about is La tasse, created by the organization La vague. It's a visually recognizable blue mug that has been adopted by many retailers and cafés in many cities. It allows consumers to pick up the mug at one location and take it back to another. It's really this kind of initiative that we want to support and roll out on a larger scale in different regions of Quebec.
When it comes to plastics and single-use products or packaging, there are two things that our work has led us to pay particular attention to.
First, reducing plastic products is good, but we must be careful not to create a rebound effect, especially when we want to reduce food packaging. We know that packaging can play a role in preserving and extending the shelf life of food. It is possible to reduce both packaging and food waste, but it must be done in an informed manner. In particular, RECYC-QUÉBEC participated in a study by the National Zero Waste Council that focused specifically on the link between packaging and food waste reduction.
Second, when looking for solutions to replace single-use plastics, we need to be careful about the impacts of those solutions. In the past, we conducted a life-cycle analysis of shopping bags. We looked at reusable bags and single-use bags, and found that the single-use plastic bag had the least environmental impact over its entire lifespan. It is often said that replacing one disposable product with another disposable product is not the best solution. You should first look at whether you can reduce their use or even switch to sustainable products.
In closing, I would like to point out that RECYC-QUÉBEC is also very active in the field of transitioning to the circular economy. This is a set of strategies to achieve our goal. Recycling is part of it, but, for us, it is one of the last strategies to look at.
In Quebec, we are working to update and modernize our recovery and recycling systems, particularly selective collection and the refundable deposit system. Last March, legislation was passed to modernize both of these systems under an extended producer responsibility approach. Deposits will also be expanded to include all types of beverage containers. So we are talking about an expanded and modernized deposit.
In summary, source reduction and reuse are our priorities.