Environment committee  Thank you, Mr. Chair. Thank you, everyone, for inviting me to speak. Also, thank you for the time you are giving to this issue and for your leadership. I am Dr. Chelsea Rochman, a professor in ecology and evolutionary biology at the University of Toronto. I've been researchin

Environment committee  —to be able to claim Canada as a leader in not just recognizing the issue but helping stem the tide of plastic pollution to protect the environment, the people and our economy. Thank you for this opportunity to speak. I would be very happy to answer questions later today as well

Environment committee  I'll start with water. Here in Toronto, we've been sampling from some local plants. Our water is drawn from the Great Lakes, so the source of the microplastics in that water is simply the microplastics being in the lake. People also have sampled bottled water and have found micro

Environment committee  On which aspect of microplastic?

Environment committee  I think it's a good question. I will say again that I think that anything we do that eliminates plastic waste and plastic pollution will help reduce microplastics. We also should recognize that there will be microplastics going into the environment by the nature of the wear and

Environment committee  We have an outreach program where we go out in the community and do cleanups on the coastline or at the mouths of rivers. The majority of what we see—the top items—are a lot of the items that you just said you can't remember the last time you used them. These items are being used

Environment committee  Thank you so much for inviting me to present to this committee. I'm thrilled to have the opportunity to share my expertise and facilitate the use of scientific evidence in forming policy. My name is Dr. Chelsea Rochman. I'm a professor in ecology at the University of Toronto. My

Environment committee  Sure, I would be happy to. Thank you for the question. I'll start with wildlife, and then I'll answer the question about human health. When it comes to wildlife, there's no doubt that organisms are exposed. This includes animals at every level of the food web. In Lake Ontario,

Environment committee  We don't know perfectly for everywhere, but I can talk to you about some of the different pathways. One, when we do cleanups or we have Seabins, for example, on our waterfronts, we know that for large plastics, some of these single-use plastic items are what we commonly find. I

Environment committee  I do agree with it. Because we see these items commonly in the environment, the criteria were right: They're common in the environment; they may cause harm; they're not practically recyclable—I understand that they can be recycled, but the markets aren't necessarily here—and they

Environment committee  Okay, the quick answer is that the ban on microbeads worked. We see less of it in the environment. Every little bit counts. Single-use plastic items are one of them. Next, let's put filters on washing machines and rain gardens on storm drains.

Environment committee  Thank you for the question. I'm sorry that I have to respond in English. I can think of a couple of extra items, which I think I put in my longer testimony. There are a couple of others: plastic wet wipes, maybe, or—sorry to say this—plastic tampon applicators. We know replaceme

Environment committee  I don't know how long it takes. It's a bit outside my expertise to know how long it takes for these to be adopted, but I can tell you that we've tested some of them in our research. For filters on washing machines and rain gardens or as bioretention cells for storm drains, they w

Environment committee  Thank you for that question. No, I don't think the items are sufficient to address the scale of the issue that we're creating, but I think every law that's put in place is a bit of a gateway for more policy to come in and increase our mitigation strategies. I think it's a good s

Environment committee  No, I don't have any scientific rationale for it. I will remind you that I'm an ecologist, but I don't have any scientific rationale for it.