Environment Committee on April 21st, 2021

[William St-Hilaire]

Currently, we have trouble sourcing materials that have been used and washed so that we can produce post-consumer recycled content. That's what we have trouble accessing currently. I think we have to invest massively in sorting centres in order to create what we call the circular economy.

Honestly, my message here today is really that we need to invest in sorting facilities. We need to invest in taking that raw material, shredding it, washing it, and being able to make new packages with it or make whatever item it is. We need to close the loop here. That's what we need to do.

[Lloyd Longfield, Liberal, Guelph, ON]

I was quoted earlier, but I was actually quoting some businesses in British Columbia and Alberta saying that we're going down the wrong path if we're limiting the transmission of plastics across borders. We need to develop those recycling centres. We need the quantity and quality of product to do that.

Is there any development through the strategic innovation fund that you're aware of, or is that an opportunity?

[William St-Hilaire]

That is an opportunity, that's for sure. I think Canada has everything in order to succeed with a circular economy. We have everything. We have—

[Lloyd Longfield, Liberal, Guelph, ON]

And now we have budget 2021. That's in the budget, so we'll have to get going on it.

Thank you very much for your testimony.

[William St-Hilaire]

Thank you, Mr. Longfield.

[The Chair, Liberal, Francis Scarpaleggia]

Thank you very much.

Ms. Pauzé, it's your turn.

[Monique Pauzé, Bloc, Repentigny, QC]

Mr. Chair, do I have two and a half minutes?

[The Chair, Liberal, Francis Scarpaleggia]

Yes. You have more time, but it's about two and a half minutes.

[Monique Pauzé, Bloc, Repentigny, QC]

Okay.

I will ask my question quickly.

Mr. St-Hilaire, thank you for joining us.

You said that three of the four food products that you make are made of entirely recycled material and only one is compostable, but they are all reusable. Is that the same for your medical and pharmaceutical products? Are they made from recycled or reusable materials?

[William St-Hilaire]

Some are. We apply the same standards for the pharmaceutical industry as for the food industry. They are similar markets. It is important to mention that, when plastics are properly recycled and come to us, they are approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration. So they are food safe.

Again, the major problem right now is that we have difficulty accessing this Canadian material that comes from Canadian sorting centres and processors to make new packaging. We have difficulty sourcing it locally.

[Monique Pauzé, Bloc, Repentigny, QC]

Thank you very much.

I have a question for Ms. Misra.

In their remarks, a number of companies have addressed the potential dangers of plant-based and paper products that are waterproofed with acids. We have received communications about this.

Can you tell us what the difference is between a compostable plastic and a biodegradable plastic?

[Dr. Manjusri Misra]

There is a lot of controversy on what is compostable and what is biodegradable. For everyone's understanding, all compostable products are biodegradable but not all biodegradable products are compostable, meaning compostability is a phenomenon.

As for the standard as far the environment is concerned, it has to be in a controlled condition, with a controlled temperature, in the presence of microbes as well as in the presence of moisture.

When we talk about compostability, it has to happen either in an industrial facility or in a home composting facility. Saying a product is compostable has no meaning. It is a misnomer. We have to say whether it is at home or in industry.

Both have different conditions. For home, there is a one-year degradation time, and for industry, there is a six-month degradation time to carbon dioxide and water.

[The Chair, Liberal, Francis Scarpaleggia]

Okay. Thank you very much.

We'll go to Mr. Bachrach now.

[Taylor Bachrach, NDP, Skeena—Bulkley Valley, BC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Professor Curran, we heard from Mr. Burt that we don't have a plastics problem; we have a waste problem. That's sort of an argument that plastics don't kill turtles; people kill turtles.

What do you make of this assertion? How do you see that informing this debate?

[Deborah Curran]

We wouldn't have a waste problem if we regulated the kinds of plastics that we produce so that they could the then be used to create the raw materials needed for what the other witnesses have said their industries rely on.

I wanted to refer back to something that Dr. Misra said. She indicated that we could get rid of 80% of single-use waste plastics if we could deal with three specific types, one being mixed material plastics, another being multi-layer protective films and the third being impractical items to recycle. This really shows that if we have these three types of materials that we actually can't deal with—they will always be waste; they will never be economically viable to deal with in another way—it is going to require the industry to shift to something that is reusable, and that then addresses the waste.

We can't promote recycling facilities or create federal standards or agreements with the provinces about recyclability, about concentrating the amount of recycled material in any one jurisdiction or place, unless we're actually creating useful material that can actually be reused.

That is just one example showing that, yes, we have a plastic waste problem, but the reason we have a plastic waste problem is not due to individual behaviour. Rather, it is due to a lack of regulation that would assist in giving industry those signals about what is useful for Canadian society.

We only have regulation when there is a failure of collective action or a failure of the market. In this case, through no fault of the industry, there is a failure of the market, so we have to send those signals through the federal government.

[Taylor Bachrach, NDP, Skeena—Bulkley Valley, BC]

Is Canada leading on this issue, or are we playing catch-up to other jurisdictions?

[Deborah Curran]

We're certainly playing catch-up. We are a very large country, so we don't feel the pressure to deal with waste in a really meaningful way except in certain highly dense jurisdictions. We are definitely playing catch-up.

You all have seen, from your reports, the European focus on the circular economy, the fact that more than 30 countries and other jurisdictions have banned plastics or taxed them in a meaningful way.

[The Chair, Liberal, Francis Scarpaleggia]

Thank you.

We'll go to Mr. Jeneroux now, for five minutes.

[Matt Jeneroux, Conservative, Edmonton Riverbend, AB]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I have two questions I'm hoping to get in, but I want to give Mr. Burt a chance to rebut some of that since his name was used in the question.

Mr. Burt, please go ahead.

[Michael Burt]

Yes, there are a couple of points that I want to clarify.

When we talk about recycling plastic, it seems that most individuals are really focusing on mechanical recycling. You are correct that mechanical recycling has a very limited ability to recycle a lot of plastics. That's not the future of plastics recycling. It is definitely something that is going to have to continue. It's a great quiver that we have to tackle plastic waste, but with advanced recycling technologies like gasification and pyrolysis, there is a Quebec company, Pyrowave, which takes the multilaminates—the chip bags, the polystyrene—and puts them in a reactor in the absence of oxygen with no GHG emissions coming off and depolymerizes them. They take a polymer right down to its base polymers.

That's what Dow and the industry are advocating for.

We can then take that, whether it's ethanol, methanol, rough-grade diesel, and blend it back into our facilities and turn it into virgin resin. The advantage of this is that it meets all Health Canada specifications. Basically, you're taking it right back to the base monomers so that you can create polyethylene and polypropylene.

That's the future of recycling. It's advanced chemical recycling using these new technologies. They've been around for quite some time. They're advancing exponentially.

Basically, all new recycling facilities that go forward are going to be based on some of these advanced recycling technologies and the reality is that you don't have to do as much sorting. We were talking about the MRFs, the sorting facilities. You can put all the hard-to-recycle plastics.... For instance, black plastic is not recycled; the optical scanners don't recognize it. Chip bags are not recycled and polystyrene is not recycled. All of those can be done with advanced recycling technology.

The technology is already in place. It's moving forward, and that's where we want to see the federal government putting a lot of its initiatives, working with the provinces to get these facilities up and running.

We are looking at an opportunity where you don't have to do a lot of sorting, you don't have to do a lot of washing, and you immediately get food-grade polyethylene or polypropylene out the back end.

[Matt Jeneroux, Conservative, Edmonton Riverbend, AB]

I might just have time for one question, Mr. Chair, but I'll try to perhaps just raise a point of clarification for Madame Boudreault in response to one of the earlier questions. There was a question asked about whether or not an exemption would be made to your products. You said no. However, to my understanding, unless an exemption is made on PHAs, your products would be classified under this recent toxic designation.

I'll just leave that with you, Madame Boudreault.

Mr. Burt, perhaps write to the committee if that's correct or not correct, from the first round of Mr. Albas's questions.

I really want to get to another question. A huge part of GHG emissions—and I'll pose this to Mr. Burt first, but open it to others if they want to weigh in—comes from food waste.

Can you explain the role that plastic plays in reducing that waste? For example, the one that I always hear about is the plastic on cucumbers. Does that not, one, make food last longer in making it accessible to remote areas, but also, two, help in keeping the prices down?

Again, I'll pose it to Mr. Burt, but if any others want to weigh in afterwards, we might have a few seconds.

[Michael Burt]

I think most people would understand that, basically, food preservation is a huge issue when it comes to GHG emissions. Given the amount of energy that is put into manufacturing and transporting food, and how food waste is one of the largest items that goes into landfills, anything you can do to preserve food, to make it last longer, to keep it on the shelves longer is of paramount importance to reaching our GHG targets.

Plastic has been proven, time and time again, and the food wrap that we have exponentially increases the life of some products.

[Matt Jeneroux, Conservative, Edmonton Riverbend, AB]

I'll open it up to anybody else who wants to weigh in on that question. I thought it was a good question.

Okay. How much time do I have left, Mr. Chair?

I'll cede my time.

[The Chair, Liberal, Francis Scarpaleggia]

Okay.

Mr. Saini, you have five minutes.

[Raj Saini, Liberal, Kitchener Centre, ON]

Thank you very much, Chair.

Thank you very much to all of the witnesses for coming today. It's been a very enlightening conversation.

Dr. Misra, I'd like to start with you because I am interested in some of the work you've done. I reviewed the paper you wrote in 2018, “Composites from renewable and sustainable resources”. I'm interested in the fact that when we talk about commercially available bioplastics, we're generally talking about hybrids, both bio-based and fossil-based composites.

You noted that 100% of bio-based plastic composites have limited success in some applications. I am wondering if you could elaborate for all of us on where you see the future for the 100% bio-based plastics, and what obstacles you see standing in the way of their mass adoption.