Science and Research Committee on June 18th, 2024

[Michelle Rempel, Conservative, Calgary Nose Hill, AB]

To be clear, though, I think my colleague was asking about looking at alternative goods for things that could be reused. Does your organization focus at all on that? Do you have specific recommendations around what substitute goods would be acceptable?

[Karen Wirsig]

What we're looking at more are substitute systems. At the moment, what we're looking at is really—

[Michelle Rempel, Conservative, Calgary Nose Hill, AB]

What I struggle with is that there is a huge policy gap here, which I think Mr. Longfield was trying to get at. We have organizations like yours telling people they can't have any plastics and you want them banned. As a public policy-maker, I get letters at my constituency office about people having to get their french fries in their hands at a drive-through.

Shouldn't we be looking at transitional products as opposed to just jumping into a ban? Doesn't that make sense to you?

[Karen Wirsig]

We have replacements for single-use plastics today. What we're hoping is that we don't end up with another single-use type of product.

[Michelle Rempel, Conservative, Calgary Nose Hill, AB]

Let's talk about that.

[Karen Wirsig]

What we'd really like to end up with is a reuse system so that when you get your fries from the takeout, you get them in a container that can be returned, washed out and given out again. That's why I say it's at a systems level.

I think what Mr. Longfield was talking about was more durable products. We're not opposed to research on the kinds of things that will need to go into durable products, but we need to make sure that those products are safe, that they're designed to be repaired and that they're designed to be disassembled so that each component can be recycled afterwards.

[Michelle Rempel, Conservative, Calgary Nose Hill, AB]

I don't disagree that at some point—it's very laudable—we want to get to this circular system you're talking about. The problem is that we've now enacted bans without having those systems or products in place, so people are getting their french fries in their hands, which is problematic. We're also banning potential transitional products, like the Calgary Co-op's compostable bag.

Don't you find it problematic that we're missing a step and that the public now sees this single-use plastics ban as highly problematic? There's not a lot of public buy-in for it.

Why isn't your group addressing the reality of public policies? Yes, we want to get to this transition, but we need transitional products right now. McDonald's is not going to wash out a plastic french fry cup right now. It's just not. How do we—

[Karen Wirsig]

It is. McDonald's is doing that. McDonald's is—

[Michelle Rempel, Conservative, Calgary Nose Hill, AB]

Is that at every McDonald's across Canada? Is a single mom who is going through the drive-through and needs some french fries for her kids going to get a reusable french fry cup that's going to be washed out for her without any additional cost?

[Karen Wirsig]

McDonald's could be doing that. It's doing it in France. It should be doing it.

[Michelle Rempel, Conservative, Calgary Nose Hill, AB]

It could be doing it. Okay. Now we're making progress.

You agree that the transitional step is expensive to the public. What should the committee be recommending to the government so that a single mom with the screaming kids in the back doesn't have to get the french fries in her hands?

[Karen Wirsig]

I have not heard of this problem.

[Michelle Rempel, Conservative, Calgary Nose Hill, AB]

I have.

[Karen Wirsig]

I think french fries are often given out in paper that's not paper—

[Michelle Rempel, Conservative, Calgary Nose Hill, AB]

I think that's the gap here. When people have to pay two dollars to Loblaws for a reusable bag, that is essentially a tax on their groceries, which have a million times more plastic than anything else. Then there's a mound of them under everybody's sink across the country. It's because groups like yours have not recommended a transitional process. It's always just a ban.

I'm not saying we don't want to get to a point where we have everything you've talked about, but wouldn't you recommend that, as a committee, we should look at that transitional step so that we can get buy-in again?

[Karen Wirsig]

We have always recommended that the real alternative to single-use plastics is reuse systems that need to be scaled up. The federal government and all the provincial governments have a role to play. At the moment, not a single—

[Michelle Rempel, Conservative, Calgary Nose Hill, AB]

You've also advocated for bans without having that in place, so we've lost the public, and the public can't afford this right now.

How do we get back to sanity? If we want to get to a ban, how do we do the transition first?

[The Chair, Liberal, Valerie Bradford]

Okay. That's our time—

[Karen Wirsig]

I'm sorry. I don't believe we've lost the public on this. I believe the public still supports the action on plastic pollution and is finding other ways to deal with replacing single-use plastics.

[The Chair, Liberal, Valerie Bradford]

Thank you.

We'll now turn to MP Chen for five minutes.

[Shaun Chen, Liberal, Scarborough North, ON]

Thank you very much, Madam Chair.

Thank you, Ms. Wirsig.

Just to continue this conversation about holding french fries in your hands and going through McDonald's drive-throughs, you mentioned in your testimony that it doesn't take long for industry to recoup investments in reuse systems. My understanding is that people aren't necessarily holding fries in their hands. They're being put in biodegradable packaging, such as paper packaging, which, of course, is still considered single-use. However, it's a step forward from plastic single-use packaging.

Do you have an example that you could share of a success story—perhaps in the restaurant industry—where investments were made in a reuse system that has enabled the industry or a particular business to address environmental concerns and, at the same time, recoup their investment?

[Karen Wirsig]

There is a study from Upstream, which is a reuse advocacy organization in the United States, that has looked at exactly this question of restaurants replacing single-use products with reusables and how quickly it took them to recoup their costs. Individual restaurants often already have a dishwasher, because they already have certain reusable dishes in their kitchen that they need to wash, so there's often very little additional cost involved in switching to reusables. Other restaurants require some retooling of the way they run their businesses, so it takes a little longer.

I'd be happy to share that study afterwards about how businesses have recouped their investments in reuse. We're hoping to look more carefully at grocery stores to ensure that this can also be done for other types of products, as opposed to just restaurant products.

[Shaun Chen, Liberal, Scarborough North, ON]

That's fantastic to hear, and I would appreciate getting more information about it. It really shows that it can be done and is being done. Hopefully, it can be scaled up and industry and governments can recognize the importance of investments in reuse systems. That will ultimately have a very positive impact on the environment.

You also touched on plastics as being very problematic. Once they're in the environment, they never go away. You mentioned the concern around the impact on human health. There is also, as you mentioned, a very notable impact on ecosystems, on marine wildlife and on soil, groundwater, rivers and oceans.

Could you speak to some of the impacts on biodiversity and wildlife that plastics are having?

[Karen Wirsig]

Sure.

The federal government produced a science assessment before proceeding with listing plastic manufactured items as a toxic substance on schedule 1 of CEPA. That assessment looked at all of the various ways in which both microplastics and macroplastics are impacting the environment, wildlife in particular. That's where the science is strongest at the moment. There is evidence of animals strangling themselves on plastic or basically feeding on plastics and starving themselves of real nutrients. Those are some examples of how macroplastics have affected and killed or maimed wildlife.

On microplastics, the research is evolving every day, but already the federal government science assessment has found evidence that microplastics can change the gene expression of small aquatic organisms. That means we're changing life in our food webs and ecosystems. Plastics are effectively changing ways of life in those small organisms. There's no reason to believe that this will not impact other organisms, including larger ones and mammals, although that research is still being done.

These are two examples in the science assessment.

More recently, microplastics were found in humans in the arteries of people who had suffered heart attacks: There are microplastics in their plaque. People who had more microplastics had worse outcomes from heart disease. This is very concerning. Is there a one hundred per cent cause-and-effect out of that study, which was published in the New England Journal of Medicine? No, there is not, but this is where we need a bit more research.

We just need to proceed with caution. We know the damage is happening. We know the prevalence of plastic. This is why we're urging the focus to be on how we reduce plastic at its source and how we make sure that our products and packaging are reused and repaired as much as possible to stop the loading of all of this plastic into our environment and our bodies.

[The Chair, Liberal, Valerie Bradford]

Thank you.

We will now turn to Mr. Blanchette-Joncas for two and a half minutes.