Environment Committee on April 21st, 2021

[Dr. Manjusri Misra]

The main thing is that whenever bioplastics.... Different kinds are either are synthetically made or are from natural resources, like starch, lignin or celluloids. Basically, whatever product you make, there's some lack of performance, and that is the main thing: they don't perform well. For example, if you need really high-barrier, highly moisture-resistant material like making packaging for bioplastic, it is not possible at each step.

We can make packaging from polypropylene; we can make packaging from polyethylene or PET as an individual polymer, which is not possible in the case of many biopolymers. That's why we always do hybridization of a minimum of two or more polymers along with other additives to make it really price and performance competitive. There is also processability, because it is also important that traditional machinery can process the material because it degrades as it goes to the temperature of processing. Normally polypropylene is processed at 200° centigrade, and the compounding cannot happen with bioplastics itself in many cases.

[Raj Saini, Liberal, Kitchener Centre, ON]

Sorry.

Obviously we all want to reduce our use of plastics, and having a medical background, I know that single-use plastics are sometimes necessary for certain medical procedures or medical devices, because they're easy and needed for sanitary purposes. Do you believe that bioplastics could help us achieve zero plastic waste in the areas that may necessitate single-use items?

[Dr. Manjusri Misra]

Yes, it's not for everything, but in some areas it can really reduce plastic waste 100%.

[Raj Saini, Liberal, Kitchener Centre, ON]

Some of the questions I had are on some of the climate effects of bioplastics. As I understand it, bioplastics require a significant amount of land, water and fertilizer in order to grow the plants or the crops they're made of. Would it be possible to scale up bioplastic production to the levels at which we are currently consuming fossil-based plastics?

[Dr. Manjusri Misra]

It may be possible several decades down the road, but not right now. This is an area where Canada can lead. Indeed, this currently a completely open area, and particularly, as for making any kind of bioplastic, Canada produces none. All of the bioplastics are produced on large scale in China, and a certain amount is produced in the U.S. and some in Europe, but nothing in Canada right now. In order to be a global leader, this is an opportunity to work on this area to find out, in particular, the monomers that are required to make plastics. We have different places where monomers can be synthesized and scaled up.

[Raj Saini, Liberal, Kitchener Centre, ON]

The final question I have is on the difference between the United States and Canada. In the United States, they have a way of defining or characterizing what can be considered a bioplastic or something that's biodegradable, and I understand that we don't have that classification system here. Would you suggest that's something that we think about?

[Dr. Manjusri Misra]

Exactly, classification of labelling and standards is a priority to be considered for bringing this innovative material to actual usage.

[Raj Saini, Liberal, Kitchener Centre, ON]

Chair, do I have any time?

[The Chair, Liberal, Francis Scarpaleggia]

You have about 30 seconds.

[Raj Saini, Liberal, Kitchener Centre, ON]

Dr. Misra, I know that you're leading this research. How would the federal government...? Setting standards is one thing. How do you see a role for the us in this? Do you believe that investing in technology, investing in start-up companies and scaling them up is something we should be doing?

[Dr. Manjusri Misra]

Yes, there are multiple ways that the federal government can provide support. One is to help existing industries that are heavily using or making non-recyclable plastics to enter into this innovative field through the help of the federal government, as well as industry and technology partners. That can happen as one of the things. We cannot make reduce to zero some of things that are not possible to recycle. For new development, we can do some start-ups.

[Raj Saini, Liberal, Kitchener Centre, ON]

Thank you very much, Dr. Misra.

[The Chair, Liberal, Francis Scarpaleggia]

Thank you.

We have a couple of minutes left, so I'm going to give a five-minute round to Ms. May.

[Elizabeth May, Green, Saanich—Gulf Islands, BC]

Oh, my heavens. Thank you, Mr. Chair. That's so kind of you. The witnesses have been extraordinary and I'm very grateful for a five-minute round.

I'm going to start with Professor Curran.

As we look at moving through a circular economy and you see this as a good first step, looking at a second step I'm very concerned about the polystyrenes that are not intended as single-use products. As you will know, living in this part of the world, on southern Vancouver Island, we have a tremendous problem with debris created by products that are not durable. They're in the marine environment. I think you'll know what I'm talking about. We have sometimes polystyrenes in floats and buoys, used along wharfs, on docks and in boats. We have fleets of volunteers who try to go to our beaches to collect tiny bits, because they do get consumed by fish. They are marine debris.

I see my friend Taylor nodding.

We have some forms of “styrofoam”, to use the conventional term, already listed under CEPA, but would you think we could act at the same time to deal with non-durable plastic items that are used in a marine context?

[Deborah Curran]

In addition to a Canada-wide context, the marine context really takes some additional consideration and some special law. As you know, you can't go to a beach in British Columbia without finding polystyrene. I've been on very remote beaches on the central coast, and you find polystyrene everywhere. This is an omnipresent and persistent problem that can't be addressed as a waste stream. It's impossible to deal with. Because it is in the marine environment, it gets broken apart, and then you simply can't deal with it as waste. It needs to be dealt with farther upstream, farther up the production chain, in a way that's meaningful so that we don't have the waste produced.

[Elizabeth May, Green, Saanich—Gulf Islands, BC]

I certainly take Mr. Burt's point from the manufacturing side that we don't have a problem with plastics; we have a problem with plastic waste. I hate to throw this spanner in the works, but is it possible that our conceptualization of single-use items might not be as useful a frame as durability? Some items that are not single-use are not durable at all, such as polystyrene used in a marine context. Other times, as some have pointed out, there are single-use items for medical purposes, where you start carving out an exception.

Make no mistake; I do want to ban all single-use plastics. However, I wonder whether conceptually we can frame this to make sure that our focus is to keep plastics out of the marine environment.

[Deborah Curran]

That's an interesting, as you say, reconceptualization. Really, what you're getting to is, what is the utility of the thing being produced? Does society have to deal with it after it has been produced, or is there some ongoing either durability or use for it in another context? That's the question that has to be asked of the production aspect of plastics and everything that goes with it.

[Elizabeth May, Green, Saanich—Gulf Islands, BC]

I have a question for Mr. Burt, if there's still time.

I note that Dow has been producing some very useful food storage items that are not immediately disposable. If I'm remembering the brand name correctly, they're called “Affinity”. As consumers seeks ways to avoid our own plastic waste in our own kitchens, is Dow looking ahead to shifting to produce more of those kinds of products so that your profitability goes forward?

The time I negotiated the most with Dow was in getting the Montreal protocol, when initially in your corporate history it wasn't the best record, but then the management shifted and said, “Okay, this is coming. We're going to have to reduce chlorofluorocarbons. We see that happening. We're going to shift our product line and go to alternatives to ozone depleters.”

Could you go to an alternative that wasn't a throwaway piece of plastic wrap and be profitable?

[The Chair, Liberal, Francis Scarpaleggia]

Mr. Burt, you have 30 seconds.

[Michael Burt]

We believe so. We are an R and D company. That's what we do and that's how we make our profit. We respond to our consumer demands.

We make resin. We don't actually make the plastic bottles; we sell bulk resin. Right now, in terms of the demands from the people we sell to, the converters, what they're asking for is higher recycling content, higher recyclability, and more durable products as you've highlighted.

In the food packaging space, which is one of the ones where we spend a lot of time and effort, we are continuing to modify our products. We have our Pack Studio developing a number of products that are addressing those issues.

[The Chair, Liberal, Francis Scarpaleggia]

Fabulous.

It's been a great session. Thank you to the clerk and the analysts for putting together this group of fabulous witnesses.

Thank you to the witnesses for their insightful answers.

Thank you to the members for their great questions.

We have about 15 minutes left until the vote. Happy voting. We will see everybody on Monday for the third panel in this plastics study.

Thanks again. Have a great evening.