Here's how a Canada-wide plastics registry could save you money
A Canadian government plan to track plastics could help put more money into consumers' pockets and keep plastic waste out of landfills.
The government an‐ nounced Tuesday it's seeking input on a new national plas‐ tics registry. Experts say it could create a lucrative sys‐ tem that encourages com‐ panies to salvage waste plas‐ tic and reimburse Canadians and retailers for dropping off scraps.
"Plastic waste is a com‐ modity like anything else," said Calvin Lakhan, a research scientist at York University's faculty of environmental and urban change. "Right now, we're not doing a very good job of recycling our plastics."
The registry would track various plastic items pro‐ duced in Canada. Everything from food and beverage con‐ tainers to household appli‐ ances, clothing, tires and fish‐ ing equipment could fall un‐ der its scope. Government documents say the reporting requirements likely would ap‐ ply to plastic producers, not consumers.
"The Government would use this information to mea‐ sure progress toward zero plastic waste and inform ac‐ tions to accelerate the transi‐ tion to a circular economy," says a news release from Envi‐ ronment and Climate Change Canada.
The federal government says the onus would fall on the producers of the plastic items to report how many items enter the market and what happens to them in the end.
The federal government says Canadians threw away 4.4 million tonnes of plastic waste in 2019 alone. Only nine per cent of it was recy‐ cled.
While a central aim of the registry is to reduce pollution and harm caused by plastic waste, the government says it could also help businesses "make investment decisions that will improve the design, manufacture, collection and management of plastics."
According to one econom‐ ic study, the plastic that en‐ ded up as litter or in landfills represented a $7.8 billion lost opportunity in 2016 for Cana‐ da.
More plastic deposit pro‐ grams
One way of helping plastic producers keep track of the products at the end of their lives is to pay consumers and other users to return them — just like many do with alco‐ holic containers.
It's already happening in British Columbia, where stricter provincial waste man‐ agement regulations hold manufacturers, distributors and retailers accountable for what happens to the produc‐ ts they sell.
One solution the industry developed to keep track of its waste is a network of more than 160 Return-It depots scattered across B.C. The de‐ pots pay deposits in ex‐ change for glass and plastic bottles, drink boxes with straws, drink pouches and even empty wine bags.
B.C.'s system has been tracking B.C.'s plastic waste for 30 years now, and has re‐ covered over 25 billion bever‐ age containers.
"We are absolutely run‐ ning a plastics registry," said Cindy Coutts, the president and CEO of Return-It. "We have most of the data the (federal) registry is looking for."
To comply with the federal government's new regula‐ tions, manufacturers in other parts of the country might want to adopt a similar return incentive model. Lakhan said that model offers a "sig‐ nificant opportunity" for con‐ sumers and businesses.
"We have an ability to ac‐ tually incentivize consumers … to ensure that they're able to take plastics back so that it doesn't end up in the landfill and the environment through a return mechanism," Lakhan said.
WATCH | How Return-It in British Columbia works
One grocer in the nation's capital already has imple‐ mented a deposit return sys‐ tem to help track and reduce its plastic footprint.
The Red Apron, a gourmet grocer in downtown Ottawa, sells ready-to-eat meals. It used to use flimsy containers but now mostly offers rigid bowls that customers can re‐
turn. Customers receive be‐ tween $0.50 and $1.00 for each returned container. They can also donate the deposit fee.
"This is working. It makes sense. It is proving itself to be a success," said Red Apron founder and co-owner Jennifer Heagle. "(More than) 200,000 containers have been used by us — 90 per cent have come back."
The grocer bags the re‐ turned bowls (which cus‐ tomers often wash before re‐ turning) and their supplier, cleantech startup Friendlier, picks them up, sanitizes them and returns them at a cost that's higher but still compa‐ rable to the cost of single-use food containers.
WATCH | How a reusable food works
Friendlier's customer base includes other places serving food, including school cafete‐ rias. The company's cofounder and chief revenue of‐ ficer, Jacqueline Hutchings, said some students have used the incentive model as a money-making opportunity.
"We see students on col‐ lege and university campuses going around and actually col‐ lecting these containers off of abandoned tables or out of the garbage and scanning them to accumulate funds to put towards different initia‐ tives," she said.
But only some plastic items can be tracked through such an incentive program. Some items inevitably will slip through into the black hole of Canada's waste system. container system
An organization repre‐ senting manufacturers argues the government's plastic reg‐ istry will place an unreason‐ able burden on the packaging industry.
Food, Health and Con‐ sumer Products of Canada, an industry group with more than 100 members from the consumer packaged goods in‐ dustry, broadly supports tracking plastics but says some of what Ottawa is ask‐ ing producers to do will be im‐ possible.
"I get that they're trying to get as much information as possible, but they're putting the responsibility on the pro‐ ducer to track down informa‐ tion that I just don't think is available to them," said the organization's CEO Michael Graydon.
Graydon said the industry already shares much informa‐ tion with provincial and terri‐ torial governments responsi‐ ble for waste disposal in Cana‐ da. The government's pro‐ posal, he said, could create unnecessary duplication.
The industry is not the on‐ ly one expressing concern. Al‐ berta's Premier Danielle Smith suggested the federal govern‐ ment's plastics registry could turn into federal overreach.
In a follow-up statement, Alberta's environment minis‐ ter called the proposed plas‐ tics registry a "waste of time, tax dollars" which will increase the cost of goods.
"Alberta is committed to effective plastics manage‐ ment, which is clearly the ju‐ risdiction of the provinces and territories," said Rebecca Schulz. "Ottawa needs to stay in their own lane rather than creating yet another costly and ineffective program that sounds good to Minister Guil‐ beault but will have little benefit to the environment."
In a news release, Environ‐ ment and Climate Change Canada said the registry would "complement existing reporting requirements such as those under provincial and territorial" programs.
The registry is expected to be phased in beginning in 2025 before fully kicking in 2028. The federal government said it would support the gov‐ ernment's goal of achieving zero plastic waste by 2030. Ot‐ tawa is consulting on the de‐ velopment of the registry un‐ til Feb. 13.