Science and Research Committee on Sept. 24th, 2024

[Dr. Myra Hird]

Thank you very much for that question.

Since all the other witnesses have said it, I also submitted a brief in which I addressed that.

In my brief, I talk about the tiered effect. I think we need to have more regulations at the federal level and certainly more policies at the provincial level that municipalities can then use to bolster their systems.

The federal government has attempted a definition of plastics as toxic. We know we're in a legal battle with the plastics and chemical industries about that. We need to keep pressing with reduction regulations.

Again, countries like France, Germany and the European Union.... I'll give you an example. Just in March 2024, the European Union introduced a number of regulations that will force companies to redesign packaging. When we're talking about plastics, the biggest category of plastics is packaging. It's a low-hanging fruit that we can be addressing. The EU has introduced regulations around how much distance there can be between packaging on tanker ships that are moving all of these goods around the planet. It's looking at packaging and how much content can be plastic. It's looking at alternatives.

We can draw from individual countries like France, which is getting companies to substitute reusable products for single-use and short-use plastics.

We have enough examples of reduction and reuse. We need to really be pushing through right to repair, which will, again, decrease waste.

There are many issues with recycling. We've touched on only a couple of them here, but we can 100% address pollution and the human health effects of plastics by reducing the production of plastics. It's not about the consumption of plastics; if they are not there in the first place, we won't be consuming them. I don't mean that we need to get rid of surgery or anything like that, but we don't need all of the plastics in packaging and so on that we see at Walmart, Canadian Tire and Costco, etc. We don't need all of that.

There are regulations and policies we have that we need to push, and we need to look at the United States, France and the European Union, which have already introduced them.

[Rachel Blaney, NDP, North Island—Powell River, BC]

Thank you so much.

Ms. Tong, I'm going to come to you next.

I have a bit of a passion myself for microplastics. I'm working on a bill that talks about removing styrofoam—I'll use the word people are used to—from the ocean, because a lot of docks and whatnot are made with that. If there's bad weather and anything happens, all of that's out in the ocean. We know it is causing such destruction to the wildlife in the ocean. It's very concerning to me.

I'm wondering if you could talk a little more—and I think you've done a good job so far—about why microplastics and this discussion are so important.

Where are there scientific or technological advancements that would help mitigate or reduce the microplastic waste and emissions?

[Ziya Tong]

I outlined in my brief some of the health hazards in what's happening with microplastics and human health. We're even finding microplastics in the placenta, so our babies are currently being born pre-polluted, which is frightening in itself.

There was a large study done by The New England Journal of Medicine that looked at nearly 300 people and found that individuals with plaque in their carotid arteries with microplastics inside of it were at a much greater risk for heart attack, stroke or even death.

A recent preprint article that I also mentioned in my brief looks at microplastic in the human brain. In 12 of the selected samples they studied, those individuals had Alzheimer's or dementia, and they had 10 times more microplastics in their brain samples than healthy individuals. It is absolutely shocking.

What we must engage in is a system of reuse. We're all used to this. We were actually trained by the plastics companies in the 1950s to live in this disposable culture, which I don't think is very polarizing. I think we all agree that creating a lot of plastic waste and garbage is not a good thing, so engaging in a system of reuse is absolutely critical. I outlined a way in which we can scale a reuse system in the brief, and I think that's fundamental.

I very much agree with the first witness, who suggested that it's so obvious and it's just common sense. We have to turn off the tap. Nothing else makes sense.

I'm so deeply troubled by this idea that we can recycle our way out of it, because plastics are not infinitely recyclable. They are not a renewable resource. You're taking a toxic chemical cocktail and producing more of these toxins, and then you're releasing them into the air, into the water and into our bodies, inevitably. In some senses, it is actually better to bury it in the landfill so that we don't end up creating more fuel and more greenhouse gases and releasing more toxins into the environment, not only into the animals but also into our unborn children.

[The Chair, Liberal, Valerie Bradford]

Thank you. That's our time.

We'll start our second round now, with MP Lobb for five minutes.

[Ben Lobb, Conservative, Huron—Bruce, ON]

Thank you, Madam Chair.

I'm thinking of the old days when you just threw it in the recycling bin and thought it actually got recycled. Those must be the old days, I guess.

I want to ask Ms. Hird a question.

It raised my ear when you said that an oil company designed the recycling logo. I always thought it was just an innocent university student at the University of Southern California.

Are you telling me that an oil company designed this?

[Dr. Myra Hird]

It was an oil company—Enercor—that funded that competition to, again, focus our attention at the individual level and make individuals and families feel responsible for our national and global pollution problem. It was extremely effective. It's a very popular logo. They have pumped millions of dollars into getting ordinary Canadians and ordinary people around the world to think that it's our fault and that we're simply not taking enough responsibility—that if we take individual responsibility, we will get rid of the problem.

[Ben Lobb, Conservative, Huron—Bruce, ON]

I always thought the dotted line was from a cardboard container company that sponsored it, but we are not here to debate the logo anyway.

My area is a rural area. Usually in June, and maybe July or August, we have the baler twine. Then in certain times of the year, we have the white plastic bale wrap that they use to preserve wet bales or bales they would be using for silage.

On something like that, does the community say, “Look, there is no other way to do this, so we have to be realistic”? What's the opinion of the community on that?

[Dr. Myra Hird]

It's interesting that you give this example.

Before the wildfires, I was invited by the mayor of Jasper to talk to the township of Jasper and its surrounds. I ended up spending quite a lot of time with farmers who asked me that exact question. They are very concerned about the bale plastic they use—that white plastic. They don't know what to do about it. They informally—I won't repeat it—told me how they deal with that plastic.

I agree with you. There is so much low-hanging fruit when it comes to single-use and short-lived plastics. Let's deal with those first. Let's get some success stories with that.

I've also been invited by surgeons to look at surgical practices. They're very concerned about all the plastics in surgical theatres and hospitals—

[Ben Lobb, Conservative, Huron—Bruce, ON]

I have limited time.

[Dr. Myra Hird]

Yes, I'm sorry.

[Ben Lobb, Conservative, Huron—Bruce, ON]

You made a good point about “low-hanging fruit”.

I think there was a study from Dalhousie University a few years ago that looked at who the biggies are—the big wasters or big producers. Coca-Cola—we all like to drink a Coke every once in a while, but hopefully not too often—and Pepsi are on the bad list.

There are bottles and there are cans. Why don't they just make it all cans?

[Dr. Myra Hird]

Well, Coca-Cola is interesting. They used to use returnable bottles, which are better than cans and plastic bottles. Cans require resource extraction for the metals, and they contain plastic as well.

The better option is to have returnable glass bottles, which we used to have back in the old days. I'm that old. There was a consortium of beverage companies that got together and launched a huge re-education campaign to force through—against major public backlash and protest in the United States, in particular—plastic bottles, because they could get more profit. They're lighter, so the transportation costs from fuel are less.

[Ben Lobb, Conservative, Huron—Bruce, ON]

I have one last question. I know I must have at least two or three minutes, or almost.

There's been a debate in this country, in Parliament and everywhere else, on plastics for food and food preservation. A family goes and buys a cucumber and a head of lettuce or cabbage or whatever, and it has plastic protection. We know it extends....

Is that one that we're going to put into the bale wrap scenario, where it's better to have food preserved for a few more days, or are we saying we have to take that plastic off right away?

[Dr. Myra Hird]

It's an excellent question. It has a kind of long answer.

Let me do the literal low-hanging fruit. We don't need to put plastic around bananas and oranges. We do currently, but we don't need to. They already have this brilliant natural covering that protects them. If we want a sort of literal low-hanging fruit, let's deal with that.

There actually are a lot of alternatives to wrapping all our food in this, but we also need to think about the food system and why consumers are sort of forced into the situation of buying that—

I'm sorry—

[The Chair, Liberal, Valerie Bradford]

Maybe somebody else can continue along that line. Thank you. That's interesting.

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

[Shaun Chen, Liberal, Scarborough North, ON]

Thank you very much, Madam Chair.

Thank you to all our witnesses.

My question is for Ms. Tong.

You have mentioned home-compostable plastics and made the distinction that you support biodegradable non-petroleum-based home compostable plastics.

When I look at some of the literature and research out there, it does point to findings that home compostable plastics don't always work, but this is where your distinction is quite important. What do you suggest to a regular Canadian out there who wants to make sure that their home-compostable plastics are in fact biodegradable and non-petroleum-based, given what you have pointed out in terms of the need for standards and more regulation, as well as the existence of loopholes in this area?

[Ziya Tong]

Thank you very much for your question.

I think you're absolutely right. Basically, I think, we don't have Canadians who have any sort of identification system to be able to tell the difference right now between industrially compostable, home-compostable and regular traditional plastics. That's why people for the most part are messing up some of the recycling streams: They're throwing products that are industrially compostable into recycling streams. It's not working, because you can't recycle them in the same way.

I think what we need to do is to support the Canadian companies that are developing the non-petroleum-based home-compostable plastics. Support their R and D and offer them some subsidies so they can actually lead in this arena and start producing those products and make them more available. They are currently available in Canada, but again, they're often wrongly conflated with regular bioplastics or conventional plastics.

Yes, I agree with you. There needs to be an identification system so that people know. It might be just on the product itself: “Hi. You can put this literally with your worms in the backyard and it will biodegrade into biomass.”

[Shaun Chen, Liberal, Scarborough North, ON]

Ms. Tong, you worked on a documentary, Plastic People, which looked at the impact of microplastics on human health. It's quite frightening to hear some of the testimony, including yours today, that talks about microplastics entering our food, our waterways, our air and, ultimately, the human body.

You, in your documentary, tested your own home, from my understanding, for microplastics. Can you share with us what you found?

[Ziya Tong]

Sure.

Very unglamourously, I had to test my own stool and my own blood. Doing that on the big screen was not fun, I will tell you that, but I will say that I tested my own blood and I did have a microplastic burden there. I tested my own stool and found microplastics there. The microplastics were in my dust. The microplastics were coming out of my frying pan. The microplastics were just about everywhere.

That should not necessarily be too surprising. If you think about just drinking out of your average plastic water bottle, you'll be consuming a quarter-million microplastics every single time you do that, right? There are microplastics everywhere. They are leaching out of the plastics. Even something that looks solid, something that hasn't been shredded in the recycling process, can actually have a lot of microplastics. Your tea bags—those plastic tea bags—when you pour boiling water on them, release 11.6 billion microplastics into your system. That can be detected in blood tests.

[Shaun Chen, Liberal, Scarborough North, ON]

That's incredible to hear.

Can I ask you what you have done about your desk and your frying pan and if you drink tea? What have you done, given that you've been able to do this in your own home and realize the extraordinary amount of microplastics that exist in the home environment?

[Ziya Tong]

On the very small scale, I've removed my chopping board, my plastic chopping board, but the much more important work that I get to do is to have the ability and the opportunity to speak in front of you and to speak before the delegates at the plastics treaty, because this really is something that needs system-level change and policy changes. Leaving this to the individual is not going to make that much of a difference, because we're trapped.

I had the opportunity to travel to the Philippines, and I saw that a lot of people there have no choice but to use the plastic products that they have in front of them. A lot of times, it's cheaper to buy those smaller plastic packages.

At the same time, I had a chance to travel to Rwanda, a leading country, a leading light, in the plastics treaty. When they go to the supermarket, those things aren't wrapped in plastics, so if Rwanda can do it, Canada can certainly do it as well.

[The Chair, Liberal, Valerie Bradford]

Thank you. That's all for your time.

I will now turn to MP Blanchette-Joncas for two and a half minutes.

[Maxime Blanchette-Joncas, Bloc, Rimouski-Neigette—Témiscouata—Les Basques, QC]

I'm going to direct my questions to Ms. Hird.

Ms. Hird, I took the time to analyze your work. I congratulate you on your commitment and your work in favour of the environment and scientific progress.

I would like to address the issue of recycling, which we are discussing today. In your work, you say that solving some problems can cause other ones. It recalls what we were told last week about the solution for biodegradable plastics, which leads to contamination problems involving recycled plastics and problems with biodegradability.

I would like you to tell us about the potential problems associated with innovations in plastic recycling.

[Dr. Myra Hird]

Unfortunately, I will have to answer you in English. I'm sorry, but I'm not comfortable enough in French.

Thank you very much for the question.

There has been a massive promise with recycling, but the reality of recycling is very different.

The first thing is that there is a low-value limit. Plastics are actually not very valuable, so when we go through all of the environmental costs and energy used to recycle plastic, you usually get only one more use out of it, and then it will go to disposal.

It also requires virgin resin. Mechanical recycling doesn't make the plastic particularly recyclable. As I said in my brief, fossil fuel companies and plastics companies are very highly vertically integrated, which means that they're often the same. Fossil fuel companies are using plastics recycling as a way of furthering production of fossil fuels. When we recycle, we increase the use of fossil fuels, and this is true globally. There is so much research that very clearly demonstrates this.

We also have to remember that when we send something to disposal—and the person who was testifying previously mentioned this—we're maybe going down the highway a short distance, but when we're recycling, we may be going to facilities that are hundreds or thousands of kilometres away—

[Maxime Blanchette-Joncas, Bloc, Rimouski-Neigette—Témiscouata—Les Basques, QC]

Ms. Hird, I have to move on, because time is running out.

Will producing more oil naturally lead to producing more plastic, yes or no?