Environment committee  I just want to go back to a comment that was made earlier by the honourable member from Quebec. I left Alberta out of the comments before about recycling rates, but when it comes to beverage containers, Alberta actually has one of the highest, if not the highest, collection and recycling rates in Canada.

Environment committee  Our packaging is Tetra Pak, aluminum and PET, recycled at very high levels.

Environment committee  Thank you for following up. I really appreciate that, because I was cut off a bit there. I'll be very quick. Our target for beverage collection in Québec is 75% by 2025 and 90% by 2030.

Environment committee  We're already hitting about 75%, but the province, working with industry, has announced an expansion of the deposit program in Quebec. We are currently working with the provincial government on building that expansion. You'll see announcements about that coming out in the very near future, but that program is going to be dramatically expanded.

Environment committee  Absolutely. We'll follow up on that tomorrow, a hundred per cent.

Environment committee  Many of our members, I will say—not all of them—are members of the Canada Plastics Pact, and it is an initiative that the Canadian Beverage Association is supporting. This is a place where industry, recyclers, processors and even some environmental groups have come together and said, “Let's work together collaboratively to try to remove more plastic from the environment,” which is what we all want to do.

Environment committee  No, it does not. Again, with the plastic we use in our industry, it's PET. I'm not going to get into technicalities; I'm not a scientist, but it is highly recyclable, recycled at high levels domestically and not shipped overseas, so we would ask the federal government to be very careful on putting rules in place that are not reflective of what is going on in the domestic market and some of the plastic markets here in Canada.

Environment committee  My comment on that would be that the government, at one point, is saying it wants to ban certain products, but is also saying it wants to increase the circular economy. I think—and I'm sure we'll disagree with certain witnesses on this committee—that there is a real value there to try to build that circular economy.

Environment committee  Thank you for that. If any information is missing from our website, we'd be happy to provide that to the committee afterwards. We generally rely on audited reports that are approved by provincial governments. For example, in British Columbia or in Quebec, through our recycling programs, we have to submit a report to the provincial government.

Environment committee  Yes, Coca-Cola is one of our members in Peel and Mississauga. We have several manufacturing facilities there that are members of our association. Coca-Cola, PepsiCo and Refresco employ hundreds of folks in that region. The beverage sector is in a unique situation. When you look at overall plastic production that either goes out in waste or is recycled, the beverage sector actually represents a very small percentage of that.

Environment committee  Thank you, Mr. Chair. We really appreciate the opportunity to appear before the committee today. My name is Jim Goetz. I am president of the Canadian Beverage Association, an organization representing the majority of non-alcoholic beverage companies in Canada. CBA members directly employ over 20,000 Canadians in more than 200 facilities nationwide, in every region of the country.

Environment committee  That's a really good question. Obviously, industry has a big part to play in this, and we are willing to step up, as everyone else on the panel has said today. When it comes particularly to the consumer product goods side of the plastics debate, there is a big part for the consumers to play as well, and I would point to two things.

Environment committee  As I just said, we have targets in almost every province.

Environment committee  No, right now they're generally between 75% and 80%.

Environment committee  I can only speak for my industry and not all plastics, but I believe that we have a target set for our industry in every province. That has already been put there. I would also say that, as for other jurisdictions that were discussed before, the EU's directive for a plastics ban set a collection target for beverage containers of 77% by 2025, and in Canada we're at 75% already.