Science and Research Committee on Oct. 1st, 2024

[The Chair, Liberal, Valerie Bradford]

I call the meeting to order.

Welcome to meeting number 99 of the House of Commons Standing Committee on Science and Research. Today's meeting is taking place in a hybrid format. All witnesses have completed the required connection tests in advance of the meeting.

I'd like to remind all members of the following points.

Please wait until I recognize you before speaking. All comments should be addressed through the chair.

Members, please raise your hand if you wish to speak, whether participating in person or via Zoom. The clerk and I will manage the speaking order as best we can. For those participating by video conference, click on the microphone icon to activate your mic. Please mute yourself when you are not speaking. For interpretation for those on Zoom, you have the choice at the bottom of your screen of floor, English or French.

Thank you all for your co-operation.

Pursuant to Standing Order 108(3)(i) and the motion adopted by the committee on Thursday, May 23, 2024, the committee resumes its study of innovation science and research in recycling plastics.

It's now my pleasure to welcome, from the Canadian Beverage Association, Krista Scaldwell, president, and from the Circular Innovation Council by video conference, Jo-Anne St. Godard, executive director.

Welcome. You will have up to five minutes for your opening remarks, after which we will proceed with rounds of questions.

We'll start with Ms. Scaldwell.

I invite you to make an opening statement of up to five minutes.

[Krista Scaldwell, President, Canadian Beverage Association]

Thank you, Chair.

I would like to thank the members of the committee for providing this opportunity to speak about the leadership role the beverage sector is playing in Canada to increase recycling and advance the circular economy.

The Canadian Beverage Association is the national voice for more than 20 businesses, representing 60 brands of non-alcoholic beverages. Our members directly employ more than 20,000 Canadians, pay more than $977 million in federal tax revenue and contribute more than $5 billion to Canada's GDP every year.

In addition to our sector's support for jobs and economic growth across the country, CBA members are leaders in sustainable packaging, design, recycling programs and the use of recycled content in packaging.

Today, we have three key points to address: one, align recycled content standards with the available supply of recycled plastic material; two, increase the supply of recycled material by supporting the development of a national framework for deposit-return and recycling programs for non-alcoholic beverage containers; and three, prevent supply chain disruptions and unintended consequences in the recycling system by excluding aluminum non-clad sheet from the aluminum surtax until additional supply becomes available.

Most CBA members have committed to making their packaging recyclable, reusable or compostable by 2025. CBA members are supplying their beverage products primarily in aluminum cans and plastic bottles, which are recyclable materials collected at a high rate, and they are among the most valuable commodities managed in packaging recycling systems.

CBA members are also taking actions to further improve the packaging they supply by supporting the golden design rules, which require the elimination of plastics and additives that disrupt recycling systems or degrade the value of other recyclables.

CBA members have made recycled content commitments and support the use of recycled content standards, but those standards must align with the available supply of recycled material. To create that supply, Canada requires a national framework of well-designed deposit-return and beverage container recycling systems with measurable, achievable recycling targets to collect, sort and market enough recycled plastic for use as recycled content.

All Canadian provinces except Ontario and Manitoba have a deposit-return system for non-alcoholic beverage containers. Provinces with deposit-return systems, like British Columbia and Alberta, have recovery rates ranging from 77% to 85%, along with high levels of consumer support. Ontario, which relies only on blue box collection, maintains the country's lowest recovery rate for non-alcoholic beverage containers, which is about 50%. Without a deposit-return system in Canada's largest province, beverage producers will have great difficulty obtaining access to the necessary supply of recycled plastic to meet the federal government's proposed recycled content target of 60% by 2030.

We ask the committee and the members of the government to ensure that any federal recycled content standards that increase the demand of recycled plastic align with the available supply of recycled plastic. We further ask the committee and members of the government to support the development of a national framework for deposit-return and recycling programs for non-alcoholic beverage containers to produce the necessary supply of recycled plastic.

Aluminum is one of the most recycled and recyclable materials used in packaging today. Canada's beverage container recycling programs recover more than 80% of aluminum cans. We understand the government's decision to align with the United States on a surtax applied to steel and aluminum products from China, but we ask that you recognize its unintended consequences.

As mentioned, the two primary types of containers for CBA members' beverage products are plastic bottles and aluminum cans. Limiting the import of aluminum used for beverage cans, with little or no time to prepare, will create major supply chain disruptions and could increase plastic usage. To meet demand, beverage companies may have to increase the use of plastic bottles until more aluminum can be sourced in North America. To prevent these supply chain disruptions and unintended consequences, we call on the government to exclude aluminum non-clad sheet from the list of aluminum and steel products from China subject to a 25% surtax until additional supply becomes available.

In summary, our association's requests of the committee are for the support of the following: aligning recycled content standards with the available supply of recycled plastic material; increasing the supply of recycled material by supporting the development of a national framework for deposit-return and recycling programs for non-alcoholic beverage containers; and preventing supply chain disruptions and unintended consequences in the recycling system by excluding aluminum non-clad sheet from the aluminum surtax until additional supply becomes available.

Thank you very much for the opportunity to share our members' perspective today. I'd be happy to answer your questions.

[The Chair, Liberal, Valerie Bradford]

Thank you, Ms. Scaldwell.

Ms. St. Godard, you have five minutes for your opening statement.

[Jo-Anne St. Godard, Executive Director, Circular Innovation Council]

Good afternoon. Thank you for the opportunity to join today's meeting.

My name is Jo-Anne St. Godard. I'm the executive director of the Circular Innovation Council. We are a leading, independent and not-for-profit organization focusing on accelerating Canada toward a circular economy and away from our current linear take-make-waste-based economy. For those unfamiliar with the concept of the circular economy, it is a model that decouples economic activity from the production and consumption of finite resources.

To offer some context to my comments today, before becoming the CIC, for over 40 years we were the Recycling Council of Ontario. In that capacity, we helped shape many of Canada's waste reduction and recycling policies and programs aimed at shifting markets toward redefining waste to valuable resources and reorganizing systems that allowed discarded materials, including plastics, to become valued feedstocks in the manufacturing of new products. Part of this role required our ability to unite policy-makers, industry interests and other stakeholders. One of our greatest achievements was the launch of Canada's blue box packaging and plastics recycling program created jointly by the private and public sectors. It is currently collecting more than 65% of the plastic packaging from our homes and is now replicated around the world.

With this experience and expertise in mind, and to respond to the committee's pursuit to conduct research to improve plastics recycling in Canada, I offer the following.

Recycling doesn't need more research. Governments and industries alike clearly understand the causation of our current poor recycling rates of plastic discards. It is fundamentally attributed to the economic disparity between the low price and availability of virgin plastics and the negative value and low availability of clean and reliable recycled plastics. For over 50 years, we have been designing and redesigning recycling programs to improve their recycling rates, spending millions on collection, infrastructure, sorting and processing, and matching operational investments with more millions toward consumer education.

If we are honest, we should acknowledge that for decades existing plastic recycling programs have effectively been financed, financially propped up, by the subsidy offered by Canadian municipalities and their respective taxpayers, making it effectively free for industry. Provincial governments are now course correcting, introducing new producer responsibility regulations to transfer these costs to manufacturers, their supply chains and their sellers. The primary objective of this transfer is to require these actors who design and sell plastics into the market to invest in a system that effectively collects and recycles them at end of life. Another objective is that these new costs will incent better design packaging and products for this system.

These relatively new EPR policy interventions are starting to take effect, coalescing in the financial contributions of producers who have taken ownership of the programs becoming intimately familiar with their costs, their limitations and their corresponding opportunity to improve them. It is estimated that Ontario's blue box program alone will cost producers over a billion dollars next year, with a significant portion of that investment dedicated to improving plastic packaging recycling specifically. Similar EPR legislation targeting other plastic products, such as computer equipment, is also expanding. New policies are being contemplated for other plastic products, such as textiles and carpets.

The effects of these new producer funding investments, tied in part to regulated plastic recycling targets, will offer an important market investment toward new plastic recycling processes, including mechanical and chemical, efficient collection and transport infrastructure operations, improved product and packaging design and, of course, expanded public education. As such, I would caution the committee to not proceed with research on plastic recycling at this time but to allow time for these new producer investments to take full effect.

There is, however, an important opportunity for this committee to reinvest and invest in research to better understand the product designs that optimize the amount of post-consumed recycled plastics. As mentioned, the cause of our consistently low recycling rates for plastics is directly attributed to low commodity value caused by a lack of market demand. Designing plastic products and packaging that maximizes the amount of recycled materials, backstopped by policies that require it, will spark much-needed market interest. This market demand will meet the new industry investments being made in recycling operations, which is the perfect recipe for sustained, high-performance and markets-based plastics recycling programs.

Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Valerie Bradford]

My goodness, that's right on time. There we go.

Thank you for those opening remarks.

I'll now open the floor to members for questions. Please be sure to indicate to whom your questions are directed.

To start our questioning, we'll have MP Lobb for six minutes.

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

Thanks very much.

My first question is for Ms. Scaldwell. It's in regard to some comments made in a previous meeting by a professor from Queen's.

I asked her about the case of, say, a Coca-Cola or beverage company. They have plastic and they have the aluminum cans, and what's the right way to go? I don't want to put words in her mouth, but she basically said that glass is actually the best way to go. It seems to me that it would be pretty energy intensive.

Is there a thing you can say on the hierarchy of good and evil that aluminum is the best, plastic is the middle and that with the energy it takes for glass, it's the worst? Do you guys look at any of that? What should the beverage manufacturers be doing?

[Krista Scaldwell]

Thank you, Madam Chair. I'd like to respond to the member's question.

I don't have the exact data with me. However, I do know that with the greenhouse gas emissions and the energy to produce the glass, it is far less efficient—in particular, the weight of it and transporting it—thus the choice of plastic and aluminum, which are both highly recyclable and both fairly equivalent in terms of the use of energy. I could look at what may be available to get more exact data for you.

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

Okay.

In the case of, say, Red Bull and Monster and those companies, when you go to the convenience store, it looks to me like they're doing aluminum cans, but when you look at companies like Coca-Cola and Pepsi and those companies, they have a variety. They have some plastic, and they have some aluminum in different shapes and sizes.

Why do they do that? Why do they have some in plastic and some in aluminum? Why don't they just do them all in aluminum?

[Krista Scaldwell]

I don't have an answer for that. I can ask that question and canvass the members and get back to you. Different companies, however, produce in Canada and some produce outside of Canada, so the availability of the packaging would likely be part of that. I will get back to you on the exact answer.

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

Okay.

If you were going to do a 500-millilitre design, what is the more cost-effective option? Is it a plastic bottle or an aluminum can for 500 millilitres or for a litre—whatever it is?

[Krista Scaldwell]

Again, I'll have to get an exact answer.

Sometimes we don't have the cost because it's competitive amongst the members. I would have to get aggregated data and get that back to you.

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

Okay. I think that is useful when you're looking at these things, maybe at a government level, I guess, in order to say, all right, we have people who come and say this and that, and there are practical reasons why some things are the way they are.

The number, you said, was 84% for recycled aluminum cans. Is that the number?

[Krista Scaldwell]

It's 80%.

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

It's 80%. Is that non-alcoholic beverage cans?

[Krista Scaldwell]

That's correct: non-alcoholic.

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

Do you know what the number is for alcoholic beverages that are in aluminum cans?

[Krista Scaldwell]

I do not have that number here.

It would vary similarly for us by province. Ontario has a deposit return for aluminum alcohol containers that we do not have.

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

I realize that it's provincial, but it might be worthwhile to get that information back to the committee to see whether it is, say, 100% in the alcohol aluminum can and bottle market. If it's 80%, is that delta worth the difference, or what is the right way to go?

Did you provide the numbers province by province for the aluminum can returns?

[Krista Scaldwell]

I didn't province by province, but the average is between 77% and 84%.

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

What is the—

[Krista Scaldwell]

Our two highest-performing provinces are Alberta and Saskatchewan for rates of recycling.

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

I'm sure Mr. Viersen and Mr. Kitchen are thrilled to know that—and Mr. Tochor too. How could I forget?

Are there any other final messages or thoughts from your organization that we should have as a committee on what the right thing to do or the best thing to do is?

[Krista Scaldwell]

I think there is an opportunity to harmonize policies across the country so that there is a chance for provinces that are lagging to learn from provinces such as Alberta and Saskatchewan. There's an opportunity to convene a working group of brands that are impacted. There are recycling affiliates by province that look at the rates and the systems. It would be, I think, very beneficial for Canadians. In particular, it makes it more efficient.

Doing it province by province is not efficient for companies. Therefore, this is the opportunity.

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

My other question isn't about plastics. It's a little off track.

There are cardboard beverage options. I'm not saying this about the soft drink industry but about juices and different ones. A lot of the recycling companies don't accept those as an option, and I'm wondering if they go to a landfill. Some collect them, but I don't think they end up getting recycled.

What happens to them?

[Krista Scaldwell]

That would be a question I'd need to ask the recycling affiliates, because I would be speculating otherwise. However, I could put that question out and get a response.