Dear Friend,
Plastic pollution is the second greatest threat to the environment after climate change. Garbage dumps overflow with plastic waste. It pollutes rivers and washes into the ocean, forming massive islands of plastic junk, killing birds and marine life. Microplastics travel up the food chain and end up in our food supply. Enough is enough!
Four years ago, in June 2018, Canada adopted the Ocean Plastics Charter to demonstrate our “commitment to take concrete and ambitious action” on toxic plastic pollution. A year later, Prime Minister Trudeau proudly announced that a ban on single-use plastics (SUPs) would come into effect as early as 2021. (Spoiler alert: it didn’t.)
Now the government has finally released draft regulations – the so-called Single-Use Prohibition Regulations – that will underpin the proposed SUP ban. But they are so seriously flawed, you have to wonder: are we actually going to ban single-use plastics or not?
For a start, the six items prohibited under these regulations represent a small proportion of the single-use plastic waste generated in Canada. In fact, most of the common SUP items found on beaches – coffee cups and lids, for instance – are excluded.
Further, the government has caved to the plastics lobby by allowing SUP items that will be banned in Canada to continue to be manufactured here and exported to other countries. As if creating future pollution by sending it overseas is somehow okay.
In the House of Commons, Green MP Elizabeth May summed up the problem and demanded that “we do something about the mounting amount of plastics in our environment, the microplastics that permeate almost all the water on Earth and the plastics that are found in the stomachs of animals that wash up dead. The Prime Minister promised to eliminate single-use plastics by 2030. We do not have a plan. The regulations that are in draft form are completely inadequate. When will we see a plan to eliminate single-use plastics by 2030?”
The government’s proposed regulations are clearly inadequate to deal with the toxic plastic waste problem and the current 2030 target date is far too late to implement the needed changes.
Friend, will you join fellow Green Party members and supporters in writing to Environment and Climate Change Minister Steven Guilbeault urging him to strengthen the proposed Single-Use Prohibition Regulations?
Let’s make sure the Minister and his colleagues know that plastic pollution is at a CRISIS LEVEL and that it’s time to start acting like it.
Thank you for adding your voice.
Sincerely,
Karen Farley
Shadow Cabinet critic for Innovation
Green Party of Canada