Environment committee  I know there's the precautionary principle, and BPA was dealt with, I think about five or six years ago, to protect young children, although the government scientists did not support the fact that BPA was causing problems. When it comes to number six plastic, styrene, we're talking about styrene versus polystyrene, which is the polymerized version of styrene.

Environment committee  To answer your question, there is an actual increase in commercial operations that can deal with plastic deformation, with dirty plastics, unrecyclable plastics. I was not able to cover it in detail here. Even in Edmonton, they have the Enerkem facility making ethanol and methanol for the circular economy.

Environment committee  Thank you, Member of Parliament. Let me say this. Extended producer responsibilities have been good for plastics. We export very little to China—well, maybe a bit too much, 12% to 16% compared to other countries. Other countries ask me why we're actually doing so well. It's because we have producer responsibility.

Environment committee  Yes, I do. Definitely. The brand owners who want us to supply those plastics want it managed. Their consumers are actually saying, “What are you going to do to make it easy for me to make the right choice. I don't want to put it in the garbage. I want to put it in the blue box or take it to the depot.”

Environment committee  I'll say on the market development side we're pretty good in working with municipalities, as you know, across the country in collection systems, market development and procurement. Let me add on procurement. I think government could have a great role in ensuring plastics and other materials get put into products.

Environment committee  There is a purpose for this packaging, and much of it has to do with hygiene and the delivery of food products in a safe way. That has developed over the years to minimize environmental, economic and social impacts. I would believe there would be a drastic impact on the delivery of, for example, food at quick serve within our grocery stores.

Environment committee  I would agree with that.

Environment committee  Thank you, Carol. Thank you to the committee for inviting us here today. First of all, our industry is deeply committed to the four Rs approach: reduce, reuse, recycle and recovery. This is called the sustainable material management approach developed by the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development or OECD.

Environment committee  I have the red card, so I'm going to just finish off very quickly. The advanced technologies and recovery will handle those plastics that are hard to recycle. Again, there are many technologies and we believe conversion technologies will get us to zero plastic waste. I'll hand it off to Carol to finish off.