Thank you, Madam Chair.
Thank you, everybody, and good afternoon to you.
I am Atul Bali, the CEO of Competitive Green Technologies out of Leamington, Ontario, the centre of our universe.
It's an honour to present to this very august gathering.
The Canadian Climate Institute estimates that climate change has caused billions of dollars in damages to Canadian households. That is just the tip of the proverbial soon-to-be-extinct iceberg.
The choice of plastics plays a crucial role as part of the effort to adapt to climate change. We need to adopt a science-based, three-pronged approach to address the subject under discussion: one, using plastics with low global warming potential, or GWP; two, reducing end-of-life greenhouse gas emissions of plastics; and three, promoting material circularity, which my colleague here referred to just now, through end-of-life recycling infrastructure.
The last prong, recycling infrastructure, promotes a “make and reuse to remake” kind of a model, be it for organic or non-organic recycling, and promotes sustainable material circularity. This three-pronged approach facilitates the creation of a low-carbon footprint economy in the world of plastics.
For context, let me cite the Consumer Packaging and Labelling Act, CPLA, that was passed in our country in 1970.
Consumers were provided accurate information on the ingredients of a product. The CPLA underwent revisions as science progressed in 2002, 2011, and 2015. Each revision promoted greater transparency for consumers, for us Canadians, helping to make informed decisions about our well-being. Choices made by the consumer in picking one product over the other accelerated industrial-scale innovation. Market forces played out. The time has now come for transparency on plastics and their impact on the environment, and letting market forces decide.
Biocomposite materials technologies have a tremendous impact on the environment and on the choices we make towards living in a better world. The end of life of the incumbent multi-material pod is an example of something very real. To illustrate my point, I'm going to cite a very quintessential and ubiquitous example: the single-serve coffee pods sold across our nation today .
The end of life of the incumbent multi-material pod is incineration or landfill, with 120 tonnes of greenhouse gases being emitted per million pods at the end of life. The equivalent of 42 tonnes of carbon dioxide is the global warming potential per million pods, so at 42 plus 120, there are 162 tonnes per million pods of total carbon emissions. Canadians use 1.5 million single-serve coffee pods a day. It is impossible to recycle such a multi-material structure for a use-and-dispose convenience product containing biomass at the time of disposal. It made it an ideal candidate for a biocomposite compostable resin solution.
We scaled up and commercialized the BDDC's invention to make the world's first certified 100% compostable biocomposite resin-based coffee pod, with zero microplastics at the end of life. We reduced the carbon emissions by 120 tonnes for every million pods, from 162 tonnes down to 42 tonnes. Since the invention, which was commercialized in 2016, we are very proud to say that we in our country have reduced 50,200 tonnes of total carbon emissions so far, with zero microplastics. Every day, 1.2 million pods are made and sold in Canada as we speak, with an enhanced user experience.
How is it achieved? The biocomposite resins have over 90% renewable carbon content, compared to zero for the incumbent material, as measured using the universally accepted carbon-14 dating system. The GWP is 1.41 kilograms versus 3.57 kilograms CO2 equivalent using the internationally acknowledged ISO 14044 standard.
This is the key insight, ladies and gentlemen. Reduce the total carbon emissions in both making the plastic, and at its end of life—and simultaneously increase the biogenic content, the carbon content, for reducing dependence on non-renewable resources.
This Canadian innovation has created employment, with high-skill and high-paying jobs across the entire country, and reduced the country's dependence on non-renewable resources. There are many other examples we can go through in the question-and-answer session, including in the automotive sector.
The point is that the science and the industrial scaling of that science exist right here and now in our great nation.
Parliamentarians must seize the moment and pass the following laws: Make it mandatory for every brand owner to prominently display on their packaging the renewable carbon content of the plastic used and the total carbon emissions of that plastic, citing internationally acknowledged standards, and mandate them to declare the designed end-of-life of that packaging.