THE STANDING SENATE COMMITTEE ON ENERGY, THE ENVIRONMENT AND NATURAL RESOURCES
EVIDENCE
OTTAWA, Tuesday, October 3, 2023
The Standing Senate Committee on Energy, the Environment and Natural Resources met with videoconference this day at 6:30 p.m. [ET] to study Bill S-234, An Act to amend the Canadian Environmental Protection Act, 1999 (final disposal of plastic waste).
Senator Rosa Galvez (Chair) in the chair.
[Translation]
The Chair: Honourable senators, welcome to the Standing Senate Committee on Energy, the Environment and Natural Resources. My name is Rosa Galvez, I am a senator from Quebec, and I am the chair of the committee.
I would like to begin with a quick reminder. Before asking and answering questions, I would like to ask committee members and witnesses in the room to please refrain from leaning too close to the microphone, or remove their earpieces when doing so. This will avoid any sound feedback that could negatively impact the committee staff in the room.
I’ll ask my committee colleagues to introduce themselves, starting on my right.
Senator Miville-Dechêne: Senator Julie Miville-Dechêne, senatorial division of Inkerman, Quebec.
Senator Gerba: Senator Amina Gerba, senatorial division of Rigaud, Quebec.
Senator Gignac: Senator Clément Gignac, senatorial division of Kennebec, Quebec.
Senator Verner: Senator Josée Verner, senatorial division of Montarville, Quebec.
Senator Carignan: Senator Claude Carignan, senatorial division of Mille Isles, Quebec.
Senator Wells: David Wells, of Newfoundland and Labrador.
[English]
Senator Arnot: David Arnot from Saskatchewan. I’m balancing out.
Senator McCallum: Senator McCallum, [Indigenous language spoken] Manitoba, [Indigenous language spoken].
[Translation]
The Chair: Thank you. I wish to welcome all of you, colleagues, witnesses, and viewers from across the country who are watching our proceedings.
[English]
Today, the committee continues its examination of Bill S-234, An Act to amend the Canadian Environmental Protection Act, 1999 (final disposal of plastic waste). For this session, we will have just one panel that will consist of three witnesses: Ms. Lisa Gue, Manager, National Policy, David Suzuki Foundation and who is present here with us; by video conference, Ms. Karen Wirsig, Senior Program Manager, Plastics, Environmental Defence; and, also by video conference, Matt Keliher, General Manager, Solid Waste Management Services, City of Toronto.
Welcome and thank you for being with us. Each one of you, starting with Ms. Gue, will have five minutes for your opening remarks. Ms. Gue, the floor is yours.
Lisa Gue, Manager, National Policy, David Suzuki Foundation: Thank you very much, senator. Thank you for the invitation to testify today. In fact, I want to begin with more thanks for the sponsor of this bill and the predecessor bill, Bill C-204, for raising attention to the problem of Canada’s plastic waste exports and the need for more effective control of these shipments.
It’s interesting to note the significant developments since the previous bill, Bill C-204, was first introduced in February of 2020. The plastic amendments to the Basel Convention entered into force on January 1, 2021. The Basel Convention — to which Canada is a party — now recognizes an annex to a new category of wastes requiring special consideration. This new category includes most plastic wastes except those that are suitable for recycling. Exports of these Annex II wastes are subject to Basel’s prior informed consent requirements as well as the Basel ban prohibition on export to non-Organisation for Economic Co‑operation and Development, or OECD, countries for final disposal. As well, Environment and Climate Change Canada updated Canada’s Cross-border Movement of Hazardous Waste and Hazardous Recyclable Material Regulations, or XBR, in February 2021 to incorporate the Annex II wastes into Canada’s definition of wastes considered hazardous for export.
Then just last week, Environment and Climate Change Canada proposed further amendments to the XBR intended in part to align with the Basel Ban Amendment. This amendment to the convention prohibits member states of the OECD and the European Union, as well as Liechtenstein, from exporting hazardous wastes to other countries, which are primarily developing countries. In the meantime, Canada is participating in negotiations towards a legally binding agreement on plastic pollution, and this new treaty should address the full cycle of plastic, including its production, design and disposal. There are many moving pieces.
Perhaps the discussion around this bill in recent years has helped to advance the larger issue. Unfortunately, the bill, as drafted, will not achieve the intended results.
My colleague Sabaa Khan appeared before the House committee studying Bill C-204 in the last session of Parliament. I refer members of this committee to her testimony and the submissions outlining specific recommendations for amendments. In brief, there are three main issues.
First of all, we’re concerned that this bill would be difficult to implement as it is misaligned with existing requirements for hazardous waste export. Also, the prohibition will be difficult to enforce. Schedule 7, the list of plastic wastes, doesn’t map well to Canada’s obligations under the Basel Convention for the management of Annex II wastes, where we see the plastics that are not suitable for recycling. Nor does it map well against the existing requirements for exports of waste under Canada’s own regulation.
Furthermore, if you think of waste shipments for export from the country, in many cases, their composition is not known — the polymer composition of plastic manufactured items is not always known. So the schedule appears to be problematic from an implementation perspective.
Secondly, with respect to the Basel Ban Amendment and plastic waste, best practice is for OECD parties to the convention to prohibit exports of wastes characterized under the Basel Convention as hazardous and also those requiring special consideration — the plastic wastes. The EU has already adopted this approach in their national legislation.
It’s important to note that although Canada has not yet ratified the Basel Ban Amendment, Canada is not supposed to be exporting hazardous waste to non-OECD countries that have ratified the amendment. The approach in the bill listing specific prohibited plastics is out of sync in this way, again, with Canada’s obligations under the convention. Instead, the prohibition should be more broadly scoped with an exception for wastes suitable for recycling.
Thirdly, for plastic waste exports not subject to the prohibition in the bill, there is a need for greater accountability. This is particularly important given the high volume of waste trade between Canada and the U.S. The U.S. has never ratified the Basel Convention and does not regulate plastic waste exports federally. Enhanced accountability measures could reduce the risk that contaminated Canadian waste exported to the U.S., ostensibly for recycling or recovery, is ultimately shipped to other countries for final disposal without environmental controls. This bill doesn’t address that problem.
The new requirements in the proposed XBR amendments are a step in the right direction in that these amendments would prohibit the export of hazardous wastes for final disposal, but would not capture those Annex II wastes — the plastic wastes. They would also require permitting of all hazardous wastes but only for export to parties to the Basel Convention, which excludes the U.S., Canada’s major waste-trading partner.
We have, as I mentioned, proposed amendments to the legislation to address these issues, but unfortunately, the House committee rejected those amendments in the previous round.
At this stage, in light of the House committee’s previous deliberations and recent developments, we would encourage the Senate committee to make recommendations to address the issues that this bill raises, but aligned with the government’s agenda for strengthening the XBR regulation, and in particular, extending the prohibition on export for final disposal to include the Annex II wastes that require special consideration — again, the plastics that are not suitable for recycling — and to require permits for exports of Annex II waste — the plastics — even to the U.S., although it’s not a party to the Basel Convention.
Second, I would urge the committee to strongly recommend that Canada move forward with ratification of the Basel Ban Amendment and support strong provisions and the new treaty to limit production and consumption of plastics to address this pressing problem of plastic waste exports at its source.
Thank you.
The Chair: Thank you so much. We will proceed with Ms. Wirsig, followed by Mr. Keliher. The floor is yours.
Karen Wirsig, Senior Program Manager, Plastics, Environmental Defence: Thank you very much. Environmental Defence is a national, non-partisan environmental advocacy organization that defends clean water, a safe climate and healthy communities that are free from pollution. My focus, of course, is plastic pollution, which is harmful both to the environment and human health.
Plastic waste exports are a symptom of overconsumption of plastics, including single-use packaging and plastics embedded in products such as clothing, other textiles, vehicles and electronics. In fact, people in Canada generate 116 kilograms of plastic waste — approximately the weight of a large refrigerator — per person per year. It’s among the highest per capita plastic waste generation in the world. A small amount of that waste is recycled. The rest is landfilled, burned or littered in Canada and around the world where it is at risk of poisoning land, water, air and harming the health and biodiversity of plants, animals and people.
Plastic waste exports are difficult to track. From Canada, plastic waste is exported as household and institutional, commercial and industrial waste to landfills and incinerators in the United States, in plastic scrap shipments to the U.S. and elsewhere and in other waste shipments. For example, paper bales to India or in textiles and other products.
It’s virtually impossible to know how much plastic waste leaves Canada each year and what happens to it when it arrives at its destination, but we do know a couple of things.
One, unsorted scrap made from anything but polyethylene or polyethylene terephthalate sorted is almost surely not recycled in an environmentally sound manner. Virtually no shipments are conveniently labelled “plastic waste for final disposal.” Instead, we like to pretend that we’re sending our waste for recycling and reuse.
It’s for this reason we believe Bill S-234 will not be effective at ending the unfortunate export of plastic waste from Canada. Further, the bill doesn’t address concerning plastic waste imports that are making their way into Canada and pose a threat to our environment and our health.
The easiest plastic waste exports to track should be those that fall under the Basel Convention, as Ms. Gue mentioned, which is intended to stop exports of hazardous waste between rich countries, such as Canada, and countries with emerging economies, particularly those in the global south. It’s also intended to require prior informed consent of the importing country prior to waste being shipped.
Canada has ratified most aspects of this convention, but the United States — our largest trading partner — has not. Canada has an arrangement with the U.S. to allow continued waste trade between the countries despite the fact that the U.S. has not ratified. That arrangement has been identified as invalid by some international organizations in part because it does not adequately ensure Canada’s toxic waste doesn’t end up polluting the environment or posing a hazard to people, especially in the global south.
Between January 1, 2021 — when the plastics and amendments of the Basel Convention came into force — and March 1 of this year, Basel Action Network, a non-governmental organization, identified records of more than 3,500 plastic scrap exports leaving Canada. Of these, one fifth went to countries other than the U.S., including at least 31 shipments of polyvinyl chloride waste, which is a hazardous waste requiring a permit. However, of those 31 — or of all the shipments — only 13 export permits total were provided in that period. That means there were certainly some 18 illegal shipments and likely many more.
Existing Canadian Environmental Protection Act, or CEPA, regulations already require most plastic waste shipments going to countries except the U.S. to have a permit, but the Basel Action Network data suggests that the permitting is, so far, what we might call — generously — hit and miss.
The Canada-U.S. arrangement remains a massive black hole. It is important to note that there is no trace of what happened to the four fifths of those plastic scrap shipments sent from Canada to the U.S. — that’s about 3,000 — between 2021 and 2023. It’s unknown how these wastes were treated, whether they were safely recycled or even whether they were exported on to other countries since the U.S. doesn’t require export permits for plastic scrap.
What is more, none of these thousands of shipments that the Basel Action Network identified included paper, textiles or other types of waste not covered by the Basel Convention but almost certainly include plastics, such as the plastics found contaminating the poorly sorted paper bales shipped from Canada to India where at least some were burned illegally according to an investigation by Radio-Canada in 2022.
Then there are plastic scrap imports to Canada, which are not covered in Bill S-234. Basel Action Network again has identified a stunning 7,000 shipments of plastic waste imported into Canada between January 2021 and March 2023, including 18 imports of polyvinyl chloride scrap. Of the total, 920 shipments came from outside the U.S., and we understand no import permits were given for any of the shipments. We have no idea where this trash ended up, whether it was properly managed in Canada or even exported somewhere else.
The bottom line is that without proper adherence to the requirements of the Basel Convention, there is no way to track what happens even to shipments identified as plastic waste that enter or leave the country. And because exports are not called “plastic waste for final disposal,” as I mentioned, S-234 will not stop them. That’s why if the Senate would like to effectively update CEPA — and this echoes quite a bit of what Ms. Gue of the David Suzuki Foundation said — the bill should prohibit the export of any plastic wastes deemed hazardous or requiring special consideration under the Basel Convention, including any shipments that include more than 5% plastic to all non-OECD countries. That would cover off those paper bales as well. Also, the bill should make plastic waste exports not subject to the prohibition, subject to section 185 of CEPA, which would allow Canada to track exports of plastic scrap to the U.S. and other OECD countries.
Finally, the bill needs to ensure that Schedule 7 aligns with the definition of plastic waste in the Basel Convention as it does not right now and appears to be a grab bag of chemicals, not all of which are even polymers.
There are additional things that the government must do to end plastic waste exports. We urge the government to revise the arrangement with the United States on transboundary waste shipments to ensure that it complies with the Basel Convention as a very high priority; improve enforcement of permitting for waste shipments to ensure compliance with the Basel Convention and to catch mislabelled and poorly sorted waste before it leaves Canada; ensure that the proposed registry for plastic manufactured items includes detailed reporting on waste exports; and ramp up plastic waste reduction efforts, including additional bans on problematic single-use plastic and a focus on reduction and reuse systems that eliminate throwaway packaging.
Thank you.
The Chair: Thank you so much. Mr. Keliher.
Matt Keliher, General Manager, Solid Waste Management Services, City of Toronto: Thank you very much, senators, for the invitation today.
The City of Toronto currently manages over 900,000 tonnes — or 2 billion pounds — of waste generated within the city each year.
The city supports the overall intent of the bill. However, the current wording needs to be more robust, and, if passed as drafted, it will have what I believe to be adverse, unintended consequences from an on-the-ground operational lens. If the bill were to remain as currently drafted, it risks significantly complicating both waste disposal and recycling throughout Canada.
I will identify four areas where there needs to be more robust language in the bill.
First, there are no specifications on the composition, the quantity or the manner of preparation for the Schedule 7 materials. Therefore, to ensure the bill is drafted appropriately, definitions and parameters must be included to specify what cannot be exported. For example, are the bales required to be homogenous, with only the Schedule 7 materials? Are the bales of materials that contain maybe some Schedule 7 materials mixed in with garbage or other non-Schedule 7 materials prohibited from being exported?
In addition, there does not appear to be any volume or weight thresholds applied by individual product, bale or load. Without these thresholds being defined, it may make the processing of recycling and garbage costlier and more difficult for the broader waste industry in general.
Second, the bill, as drafted, prohibits Schedule 7 materials being exported to the United States. This could mean that garbage collected in Canada that contains any waste products or one or more of the compounds in Schedule 7 cannot be sent to the United States for final disposal.
Although the city does not currently transport garbage to the United States for final disposal, removing this ability for private waste haulers will impact the City of Toronto and the Province of Ontario in a couple of ways. If mixed bales or mixed loads of waste containing Schedule 7 materials are not allowed to be exported, they will be required to be landfilled in Canada.
According to our current estimates, the Province of Ontario has approximately eight years left of landfill space, with that space running out in approximately 2032. This is considering that, currently, approximately 30% of garbage generated in Ontario is sent to the United States for disposal. If no garbage is sent to the United States, there are approximately only four years left of landfill space in the province of Ontario and, ultimately, the space will be depleted by approximately 2028.
For additional context, to build a new landfill within the province — and likely most provinces in Canada — we’re looking at between 10 and 15 years to site a landfill. As a result, with more garbage being landfilled in Ontario, the city may not have adequate landfill space and the cost of landfill space across Ontario will likely increase due to supply and demand. This will place additional costs on the users of landfills, on businesses and on residents.
Third, the bill, as drafted, does not define “final disposal.” Therefore, it’s unclear whether Schedule 7 materials can be exported to be recycled. If Schedule 7 materials can be exported for recycling, it’s common that not all the materials in a bale end up being recycled. That will mean that there is generally leftover material from those bales called residuals, which will be required to be managed. Will the requirement be that those materials be sent back to Canada to be managed? Or since that material has made its way to another country under the recycling umbrella, will that second process not be considered export?
Fourth, the wording in the bill is not clear about incineration for energy as final disposal. Although the city does not currently incinerate any of its waste — in Canada or abroad — losing that option could lead to greater operational costs in the future for the broader waste industry.
In summary, more detail and framing are needed in the bill around prohibited countries of export; composition of bales or loads of material being exported; the quantity of those materials; a definition of what disposal means and does disposal also cover energy from waste; can materials be exported to be recycled; and, finally, what is the requirement for the materials, when they are exported, that aren’t recycled be managed appropriately or sent back to Canada or addressed in the country that has accepted those materials? Thank you.
The Chair: Thank you so much. Now it is time for the question period.
Senator Arnot: Thank you. My question is to Ms. Gue. I’m interested in what you said about Schedule 7 aligning with the Basel Convention. I know that it’s 24 years old and contains 32 elements. I’m thinking that there has been a new category or a new annex created such that there have been amendments to try to capture more plastic waste.
That being said, I’m interested to know what you would recommend this act contain in a schedule that might be appended to the act. Do you have any advice on how additional elements can be put on a schedule for export ban in the future through regulations? Anything you can say on that would be quite helpful. We’re looking at improving the bill if we can. I’m sure your answer will be more than four minutes.
Ms. Gue: Thank you very much, Senator Arnot, for the question. I do agree that the formulation of Schedule 7 is problematic in the context of this bill, even in terms of the bill’s intent.
As I mentioned, there are some other issues as well. If the committee chooses to move forward with amendments to this bill, my suggestion would be to replace Schedule 7 with a reference to Annex II of the Basel Convention. The Basel Convention is referenced in the regulations made to implement this section of CEPA, so either incorporated by reference or reproduced.
Essentially, with respect to plastics, Annex II sets out a category of plastic waste. It’s plastic waste except those that are substantially clean, sorted and suitable for recycling. As you heard from another witness, the reality is that most plastic waste, whether or not they are labelled recycling, are not recyclable.
The Basel construction moves away from the problems of trying to come up with an exhaustive list of polymers. Again, even some of the items on this list appear to be perhaps typos, not even polymers. This will be a changing list if we’re stuck with polymers and the Basel approach rather gets at the issue of, “Is this a load of waste that is suitable for recycling?”
I do think that because Basel already obligates Canada and the regulations that implement this section of CEPA do already recognize those Annex II wastes as wastes considered hazardous for export, the best approach would be to replace the current Schedule 7 with either incorporating by reference the plastic waste entry on Annex II of Basel or by reproducing it in its entirety.
[Translation]
Senator Carignan: My first question is for our witness from the City of Toronto. You seem to be saying that if we have to manage the plastic that is banned from being exported here in Canada, it could cause problems. It’s complicated to open a waste site. How much waste does the City of Toronto landfill every year? How much waste does Canada landfill every year? We’re talking about 20,000 tonnes of plastic waste that’s banned here. That’s pretty minor, though, compared to the overall amount, and that’s assuming that this waste will be landfilled. Aren’t you pushing it a bit when you say we should open a waste site?
[English]
Mr. Keliher: Thank you for the question, senator. Twenty thousand tonnes is very small in terms of the total amount of waste that the city — or, generally, the country — would landfill in a year. To provide some context, the City of Toronto landfills approximately 500,000 tonnes of material per year from our residential collections.
That being said, one of the other challenges with the material is identifying with a definition in this bill the “bale of material” or is it specific to that material in and of itself? If you have a tonne of this material separated and segregated, that is much easier — and likely more cost-effective — to manage than if some of that material is spread over 50,000, 60,000 or 70,000 tonnes being placed in those bales of garbage.
Knowing and having a better understanding of the thresholds for what would be able to be exported from a volume or quantity perspective or the amount of these materials in a bale of other garbage is extremely important from an operational perspective.
For instance, if one tonne of garbage has a few pounds of these materials in there, does that material all have to be removed from that garbage before it could be exported to the United States, which is the current case, or can that material move across the border because it was able to meet a certain threshold of acceptability to move across the border?
That is where I was referring to the idea that a better understanding of the volume, quantity and the makeup of the material when it is exported would be extremely helpful in understanding the potential impact on landfill management from an operational perspective.
[Translation]
Senator Carignan: My question is for the other two witnesses. If I understand correctly, you’re saying that identifying the plastic that would be banned from export would be a bit complicated to implement. Instead, we’d have to ban plastic exports entirely — that would be more effective.
Ms. Gue: Obviously. I’ll continue in English to make sure I’m precise.
[English]
The Basel Convention does provide an exclusion for wastes that are suitable for recycling. The Basel Convention itself and Canada’s obligations under it distinguish between hazardous waste, which does include certain plastics, actually — and that category should also be referenced in the annex — but in addition to those wastes, this new category under the plastics amendments creates a new category of wastes requiring special consideration. Those are plastic wastes not otherwise categorized as hazardous but not suitable for recycling. That is where the focus needs to be. As you heard from another witness — from Ms. Wirsig — in general, Canada does not export large volumes of plastic waste for final disposal. In general, those are shipments of plastics — purportedly for recycling — and yet with very little control over where they end up or whether they can, in fact, be recycled.
[Translation]
Senator Carignan: In your opinion, would it be better to ban the export of plastics altogether?
[English]
Ms. Gue: We would support a mirror of the Basel language, so excluding plastics that are suitable for recycling.
[Translation]
Senator Carignan: That’s what the bill does.
Ms. Gue: Not quite.
[English]
Schedule 7 is limited to this list of plastic polymers. It is not clear whether these items — it would be difficult to identify these particular plastics in an actual shipment of plastic waste.
Another thing is that the bill targets that category of wastes that are destined for final disposal whereas we know that the vast majority of these plastic wastes are not leaving for final disposal but purportedly for recycling.
Senator Wells: My first question is for Mr. Keliher.
I know you are a board member and director for the Ontario Waste Management Association. I assume that association includes some companies that would be impacted in a trade way if this legislation were to come into effect.
Can you comment on that? What are those who you might be associated with under the Ontario Waste Management Association — those who are, perhaps, exporting plastics — what are their views, if you know it, or what might their view be if they are a part of the association?
Mr. Keliher: Thank you for the question, senator.
I am a member of the Ontario Waste Management Association. However, I wouldn’t want to speculate on the association’s individual members’ viewpoints on this particular bill or, honestly, give the viewpoint of the organization or association without having discussed that with the board and the chair.
I will, however, preface that when regulations and legislation are put forward, there is a scope and lens of the cost that this will put on the environment, taxpayers and businesses that need to be taken into consideration along with the operational ability to achieve what is in a regulation. From being on the ground and running the largest municipal waste operation in the country, we take seriously our obligations with respect to our requirements under our environmental certificates approval and all legislation and regulations. We need to ensure that when regulations and legislation are put forward that we are able to operationalize that based on the drafting of those documents.
That is where — if we circle back to a few of my comments in terms of the composition of bales — how this will be operationalized, it is extremely important to have that well‑defined for municipalities, businesses and residents who we service.
Senator Wells: I do have one for round two for Mr. Keliher, but I will ask a question of another witness.
I am not sure who is best able to answer this question, Ms. Gue or Ms. Wirsig, but with respect to tracking what is going out — and if some things are going out under different harmonized system, or HS, codes or different product names — we know that there are a significant number of products that are mislabelled either by accident or deliberately, so what is the best way to track what is going out? Is it through publication of export data? What is the best way to do this? I do not know who is better —
Ms. Gue: Ms. Wirsig, would you like to start?
Ms. Wirsig: Sure, I can start with that. Thank you for the question.
Tracking the export of waste is a significant challenge. We get that. That is partly because of the mislabelling, and when it comes to plastics — because plastics are in almost everything — they are in many forms of waste that might get exported or disposed of in Canada.
The real trick is to ensure that companies that export waste know what the rules are — make the rules very simple. Then we have to start opening more containers on the Canadian side. I do not know if you saw the documentary that Radio-Canada and CBC aired in early 2022 that showed a Belgian inspector opening a Canadian waste shipment that was being transshipped through Ghent, Belgium, to India that was supposed to be a paper shipment and was plugged full of waste plastics.
So we need to do that; we can’t rely on our public broadcaster and inspectors in other countries to be doing that work. We do need to do more of that surveillance and monitoring so that companies that export this waste understand that the regulations are serious and that they will be stopped at the border. The last thing you want to do — in that case, what happened with that shipment in Ghent is that it was stopped there, and it was destroyed — in fact, burned — in Europe. It was paid for by the company that was trying to export it.
That is the last thing we would like to see happen — that our waste ends up being a burden to somebody else and ends up environmentally polluting another community. We need to do a better job of checking these things before they go out.
The problem with this bill is that it won’t allow you to properly identify the shipments that we know are causing the problems because they are not labelled in the way that the bill suggests they are. If you want a good faith measure to update CEPA, you really do have to do what Ms. Gue has suggested, which is follow Basel and at least create some streamlined definitions that everybody is using around the world so that shipments can be better traced. Once they leave Canada, they also have to also be traced in a different way. If we find out they are arriving in another country and are violating the Basel Convention, it would be convenient to know that they fit with or violate our own laws, too.
Senator Wells: Thank you.
The Chair: Because we are on the issue of traceability, I would like to ask Ms. Wirsig a question. When we started this story of recycling, it was the industry as the recycler who was imposing the conditions. They would say, “If you want me to recycle one tonne of plastic or aluminum, it has to have this density, this amount of dirt, this amount of contamination and then I will pay you what we have decided upon, I will recycle it and insert it into the industry.” What happened that this stopped? We got out of control. Can you please explain that to me?
Ms. Wirsig: The simple answer is that plastic happened.
The Chair: Plastic happened.
Ms. Wirsig: I think Mr. Keliher might agree with me, but municipal recycling was much simpler when most of the recyclables were paper, glass and metal. Suddenly, we are dealing with plastic manufactured items and plastic packaging. They are all different shapes, sizes, densities and chemical polymer types, and they can’t be recycled together.
What ends up happening is that those companies that can recycle the polyethylene terephthalate, or PET, will give you a nice price for your PET — assuming commodity prices are up — and that has to be well sorted. But what happens to all of the junk that is not well sorted? What do I do with it? Do I pay to have it landfilled? Or maybe there is a company in India who will take it, paying women 200 rupees a day to sort it, then I will use whatever marketable stuff that is out of there that is worth my while and burn the rest or dump the rest in a river.
What we are dealing with now is plastic-contaminated recycling streams and plastic-contaminated waste and organic streams. Plastic is in everything, it has made sorting a nightmare and that is partly why we are asking for expanded bans on plastic products.
The Chair: Thank you.
[Translation]
Senator Miville-Dechêne: I need some clarification. You seem to be saying that it’s better not to have a bill at all than to have this bill, and that Canada should sign the amendment to ban the export of end-of-life or hazardous plastics. Canada hasn’t signed the convention, and we don’t have the power to ask the government to sign it. Our only power is to decide whether or not to pass a Senate bill. It’s all well and good to say that we don’t inspect enough of what crosses the border, but whether it’s the Basel Convention or a bill that applies, this problem won’t be solved.
I’m trying to understand what you mean. What do you want? No bill, or a specific change in the definition of “final disposal”? There were a lot of acronyms in your presentation and I lost bits of it. Can you clarify what you want, what you don’t want and what amendment you’d like us to make?
[English]
Ms. Gue: I appreciate the question and completely sympathize. There is Basel, CEPA, hazardous waste export regulations, there is this bill and there are many different references. Let me answer, and then I’ll also invite Ms. Wirsig to add to it because I know she has some comments as well.
The issue is, happily, that Canada is moving towards implementation of the Basel Ban Amendment. The proposed amendments to the XBR regulations that I referenced are explicitly intended to align with the Basel Ban Amendment and put Canada in a position to be able to ratify that amendment. I hope that with whatever power the Senate committee does have on these matters, you will encourage Canada to move forward with the ratification of that amendment.
In terms of implementing it, the problem is that Canada is currently moving to implement the Basel Ban Amendment through changes to the regulation, which appear to be a step in the right direction, but have certain gaps, as we have been discussing. The problem is that this bill has the same gaps and even more.
In summary, my view is that adopting this bill, as drafted, will not improve the situation in respect to illegal plastic waste exports. It will not functionally do much to align Canada with its Basel commitments under the plastics amendments much less the Basel Ban Amendment should Canada sign those.
[Translation]
Senator Miville-Dechêne: Am I mistaken or is the Basel Convention non-binding? It’s an international convention.
[English]
Ms. Gue: Canada is obligated by the treaty. It is an environmental treaty. What you’re pointing to is what happens if we don’t implement those obligations effectively. I think what Canada needs to be concerned about is implementing to the highest standard.
I want to add that I will table with the committee some specific amendments that we have proposed to address some of these issues in the bill since it was first introduced, and there are now also changes to the regulations that are tabled. I do see an opportunity to address some of these issues through strengthened forms of those amendments.
The problem is there. What I worry about is the passage of a bill that purports to address the problem without actually solving the problem at all and, in fact, instead creates implementation challenges that will be a distraction when we need the government to buckle down and do more on enforcement, as we have just been discussing. Attempting to implement the bill, as drafted, could actually be a drain on those resources.
Ms. Wirsig: The Basel Convention is enforceable. It requires Canada to have regulations to enforce or to implement Basel. It requires those regulations to be enforced.
I appreciate the spirit of this bill very much. There are potentially some legislative amendments that could be made to CEPA to fix things. What Ms. Gue is suggesting is that these things could also be fixed through additional updates to the regulations related to CEPA and waste exports.
If you want to put your stamp in the sand on plastic waste exports, we are not here to tell you not to do it. I totally agree with Ms. Gue, we’re saying to make it effective and make it count.
I think you also need to ensure that there is the enforcement capacity there. Otherwise, without enforcement, these regulations don’t mean anything. This is a difficult sector to enforce, I think. It is a difficult sector to regulate and enforce those regulations, so care has to be taken to do that.
[Translation]
Senator Massicotte: Thank you to our witnesses for being with us today. It’s much appreciated. However, when I listen to you, I think that the situation is serious. There are people who don’t take the situation seriously and who are polluting the world. How can they do that? It’s a scandal.
On the other hand, we’re talking about Canadians and Americans. They’re great people. What’s the opposite? What’s the argument? Why are there people like you, who see this situation as negative, while legislators in many countries do nothing? Ultimately, they must think that there’s a good reason for doing nothing and that there’s no urgency. Can you explain what the consequences of all this are?
[English]
Ms. Gue: One thing that I will mention to start is that, in fact, in Europe, the Basel Ban Amendment has generally been implemented through state-level legislation that prohibits the export of all wastes considered hazardous and requiring special consideration under Basel. That includes the plastics that we have been talking about. It prohibits those exports altogether outside the EU. It is important to have that context that Canada is not leading in this domain, and that, in fact, other countries around the world have been faster to ratify the Basel Ban Amendment and put in place effective controls on plastic waste exports.
I agree with Ms. Wirsig that what complicates the picture significantly in Canada is the magnitude or dominance of our waste trade with the U.S. and the U.S. not being a party to the Basel Convention.
[Translation]
Senator Massicotte: Why are we in no hurry when it’s so urgent and important? Why do we react with patience? Yet you tell us it’s so important.
Ms. Gue: Personally, I have no patience. It’s a very good question. It’s an urgent matter. The United Nations talks about a triple ecological crisis: climate change, loss of biodiversity and pollution, including from plastic waste. It’s absolutely urgent.
Senator Massicotte: Thank you.
[English]
Senator McCallum: Thank you to the witnesses for your presentations.
When we look at plastic waste and how it is disposed, how can something like that be environmentally sound when this waste is being transported in the first place and we are not able to deal with it in our own country? I know that in Winnipeg, the way that people sort the plastic, a lot of it goes to the landfill because it is dirty. People do not clean it; they are not abiding by that.
My concern is about being overwhelmed with plastic waste in the near future and that we already seem to be, as we now have to rely on exporting it.
When you look at “environmentally sound,” how can we even use that phrase in a situation like this?
My problem with landfill is that it is, hopefully, not on First Nations lands when it comes to that.
Ms. Gue: Thank you for those observations, senator.
It is very important to bring into this conversation the very real environmental justice considerations attached to the global waste trade. As Ms. Wirsig indicated, when we become aware of illegal plastic waste exports in non-OECD countries, it is because we are seeing pictures on the news of very poor communities being poisoned by the disposal of our overconsumption. Both domestically and in an international context, that is the reality that we need to be aware of.
Your question about environmentally sound management is pertinent to Canada’s situation. The majority of our cross-border boundary waste trade is with the United States. In that case, because Canada is a party to the Basel Convention and the U.S. is not, the Basel Convention requires Canada to ensure that any shipments to a non-Basel country — so to the U.S. — are guaranteed to be dealt with in environmentally sound facilities.
This is something that Canada is willfully closing its eyes to. We essentially cannot guarantee that at present. Canada has signed a bilateral agreement with the United States involving waste trade. The words on the papers talk about “environmentally sound,” but what that means in practice is we are not requiring permits of these wastes requiring special consideration — the plastic wastes not suitable for recycling. We are not requiring changes to the permitting requirements, and these new regulations will not capture these plastic waste exports going to the U.S. because we have this piece of paper that has deemed U.S. waste management, writ large, “environmentally sound.” And that is a fairytale. This issue deserves more scrutiny.
Ms. Wirsig might have something to add on the Canada-U.S. relationship.
Ms. Wirsig: Thank you so much for your question, Senator McCallum.
I am deeply disturbed by what we deem to be environmentally friendly when it comes to recycling of plastic in particular.
There are cases where plastic is properly recycled and turned back into the same kind of product it was in the first place, but that is extremely rare. That is why I tacked on the recommendations I make not for this bill but for the government, writ large. We really need to turn off the plastic tap. Because where does waste go? Waste does not go in my backyard. It doesn’t go in the backyards of the most powerful people in this country or in the world. Waste goes in the backyards of the people who cannot say no. Unfortunately, in Canada, we know that is on Indigenous lands. It is on Indigenous lands in the United States and elsewhere in the world.
That is why, frankly, we have to turn off this plastic tap. We cannot generate so much of this garbage in the first place. The stuff we do generate, we need to keep right here because that is the only way we’re going to know if we can deal with the amount of consumption that we have right now.
Waste trade has been a release valve for some of the most dangerous stuff that we don’t want to keep in our own backyard, and that really has to stop. I totally feel the urgency of doing something about this.
Basically, Basel goes some way to that. But if we have waste, we are going to have problems. At the same time, we also need to try to go for zero plastic waste.
The Chair: Thank you. Ms. Gue, you mentioned that you would like to present amendments at some point, and I do not think that you are coming back to this committee. Will you send them or can you explain briefly what the intent is?
Ms. Gue: Yes. I can outline them right now. Sorry, I meant that I would submit them in writing. We received rather short notice about today’s appearance, so I wasn’t able to prepare a written brief, but we would recommend the same amendments that we recommended to the House committee in 2021.
In general, there are three amendments. Picking up on the question that Senator Arnot asked earlier, replacing the prohibition in this regulation with a much broader prohibition on the export of plastic wastes, except — and then create an exception mirroring the exception in Annex II of Basel. It is quite detailed, so I will not read it word-for-word here. The gist of it is wastes that are suitable for recycling, so clean, sorted and with some exceptions for the types of plastics we know can be effectively recycled.
Then, secondly, prohibiting the export of plastic wastes characterized under Basel as hazardous or requiring special consideration to non-OECD countries. So beyond the bill right now, that would be an amendment to the bill with respect to its current focus on final disposal. Add an additional prohibition for any exports of the plastic wastes that are hazardous or requiring special consideration specifically to non-OECD countries. Again, as I mentioned initially, that is best practice right now. That is how European countries are implementing the plastics amendments and Basel ban in their domestic legislation.
Finally, to make plastic waste not prohibited by the combination of those measures still subject to the CEPA permitting requirements for waste trade essentially. This is where I do see progress in the recent changes to the amendments except that they stopped short of requiring permitting to plastic waste shipments to the U.S. This is imperfect. Permits, as Ms. Wirsig mentioned, are only as good as the enforcement of them, but at least it provides the tool for accountability and improves accountability for where our waste shipments to the U.S. end up.
[Translation]
Senator Gerba: Thank you to our witnesses for being here today. I understand that there is a problem of traceability and transparency in this industry. Do any countries have a way of doing things that makes this industry a little more transparent?
Here’s my first question, addressed to all of you.
You’re talking about a possible export ban. Here’s my second question. Has an assessment been made of what this might cost, especially for small and medium-sized businesses in this sector? What would need to be done, should we ever lean toward a ban? Thank you.
Ms. Gue: Thank you for the questions.
[English]
I will begin and let others add to my comments. In terms of best practices, again, I would point to the European countries that have implemented the recent plastic amendments to Basel and the Basel Ban Amendment with a prohibition on wastes that are hazardous and wastes requiring special consideration, so that would include the plastics unsuitable for recycling once again. A complete prohibition on exports to non-OECD countries. It clarifies the regulatory structure.
I think the problems that Ms. Wirsig outlined earlier — the complexities of managing plastic waste — are complex everywhere. I do find hope in the negotiations that are proceeding towards a legally binding treaty to address the full lifecycle of plastic waste. I fully agree with what Ms. Wirsig said earlier that we aren’t going to solve this problem at the bottom end, downstream only. We need to address the source of the problem which is our overconsumption and overgeneration of plastics in the first place.
The second question was the costs. I do not have that information. Typically, that would be analyzed as part of a proposed regulation. I’m encouraged to see the steps being taken towards this in the proposed regulations which are costed, but again, they don’t go far enough. I would say with respect to our assessment of costs that we need to stop excluding the costs to the environment. The environmental problems are dwarfing some of the other ways that we measure costs, and we need to take a more realistic and holistic view of costs of the plastic waste problem.
The Chair: Ms. Wirsig, any comment?
Ms. Wirsig: I don’t have anything to add. One thing about the impact on small businesses, this really does need to be part of a just transition away from depending on resource extraction and waste in our economy. I would say that I would encourage small- and medium-sized enterprises currently engaging in waste trade that involves plastics and other toxic substances to think about how they can be more involved in service provision to eliminate waste in the first place, so reuse services and those kinds of things that eliminate waste. This is where small- and medium-sized enterprises need to shift.
[Translation]
Senator Carignan: I’m trying to get this right. The bill doesn’t come out of nowhere. It doesn’t change a system that already exists. The Canadian Environmental Protection Act already provides for certain measures in Section 8, which is entitled “Control of Movement of Hazardous Waste and Hazardous Recyclable Material and of Prescribed Non-hazardous Waste for Final Disposal.” It even provides for a system of permits, export, import, control, labelling, inspection, and authorization on the part of the country receiving these wastes to ensure what it will do with them.
There’s already a whole system in place. It may not work perfectly, but we assume it does work.
In addition, the bill gives a list of plastics that are to be phased out permanently, a list that already exists in various annexes to the Basel Convention. We can identify them. The convention states that we will ban the export of these plastics, as will all European countries. In Canada, we wouldn’t be able to do that. There’s even more to it than that, if it’s too complicated and I take the example of our friend from Toronto, we don’t really know — Sometimes — I think I’m a bit confused — it can be difficult to apply. However, the bill even gives the minister the power to modify the list, to delete items or add new ones. It’s too complicated; we’ll eliminate that.
What’s the problem? What is it that Canada can’t do, but Europe is doing with very little effort?
[English]
Ms. Gue: It’s not an unusual situation, unfortunately, that Canada is tracking behind the EU countries when it comes to environmental standards. I do appreciate your efforts, senator, to bring Canada up to speed on this part of the problem.
The issue is that even since this bill was first introduced, the comparison has changed, the best practice has evolved. Today, we have seen the plastics amendments to Basel which basically recognize that we will not solve the plastic waste problem through a definitive list of wastes but rather through an understanding of whether or not those wastes are suitable for recycling — just to come back to that — whether or not they are labelled as such, whether or not they are labelled for final disposal or not. This is now what is reflected in European legislation. European legislation does also incorporate by reference the Basel framework in a way that this bill does not.
I worry that the restriction on final disposal —
[Translation]
Senator Carignan: The law already does a lot of this, with the export and import bans and with the imposition of permits. Elements of the Basel Convention system are already incorporated into current legislation. We are adding a ban on certain plastics.
[English]
Ms. Gue: My recommendation would be to work with that system, which — you’re right — is intended to implement Basel but predates the plastics amendments. Again, bring those wastes requiring special consideration — the Annex II wastes, which include these plastics not suitable for recycling — into the CEPA framework — the requirements that you have just referred to. The recent proposed changes to the regulation would do that in part — at least requiring permitting for shipments to Basel parties — but will not address the issue that Canada has with the U.S.
In summary, I think Canada needs to be cognizant of the circumstances of our waste trade with the U.S., complicated by the fact that the U.S. itself is not a party to Basel. As well, in thinking about how to tackle this problem, this bill could be strengthened. We need to reflect the latest requirements under Basel and not just those from decades ago.
Let’s catch up to best practice today, not best practice a decade ago.
[Translation]
Senator Miville-Dechêne: I would like a few more clarifications.
In the bill, we talk about “plastics destined for final disposal.” You say that we should also talk about hazardous waste and plastic waste that is disposed of in a particular way.
Can we have an idea of the percentage to fully understand the problem? When you think of all recyclable plastics, what percentage would be covered by the bill? You’re saying, if I understand correctly, that we’d capture more non-exportable plastics with the Basel Convention definition?
Are we talking about quantity here? Are we able to measure how much plastic we have to get rid of at all costs?
[English]
Ms. Gue: That is a great question. I don’t know if that analysis has been done on this bill. I imagine it would be difficult to do because of the way Schedule 7 is constructed. I’m going to pass that question to Ms. Wirsig. In her testimony, I think she had some information about the scale of the problem.
I did want to make one clarification. I think your question conflates two issues. One question is how the prohibition is scoped and the formulation of Schedule 1. However, you’re right that the bigger issue behind your question is around limiting the prohibition to wastes destined for final disposal. I just wanted to underscore that those are two slightly different issues with the bill. Certainly, we know that the number of plastic waste shipments leaving Canada for final disposal is much smaller than plastic waste shipments leaving purportedly for recycling.
Ms. Wirsig, do you have any more specific data on how those two compare?
Ms. Wirsig: We know that, overall, only about 8% of plastic waste is actually recycled. I would have to assume that the vast majority of plastic that is exported outside of the United States is never recycled effectively because if there is well-sorted material ready for recycling in a market on the other end, that is going to stay in North America, right? So the real problematic stuff, which are these shipments that we see opened with just pure garbage in them, is probably — we do not have good data on this from around the world, but I have talked to activists in other countries where Canada’s plastic waste does go. They don’t want it. It does not get recycled safely there. Even if it is well sorted — say polystyrene waste, which we are shipping a lot of now to places like Malaysia — and even if it gets shipped there, it’s not safely recycled. It is a burden on those communities.
Therefore, there really are two points that have to be captured if you want to improve this bill. The first is on what you’re defining in the bill itself as the destiny of this plastic. You basically have to shorten it to waste exports outside of the OECD, perhaps. Then, the schedule — if you need a schedule — really does need to define any plastic waste. The easiest thing that the world has come up with is plastic wastes that are not suitable for safe, environmentally friendly recycling. That is most of the shipments that are currently exported.
I think the other problem that the City of Toronto has raised is that the way this bill is phrased, you will be including waste shipments that aren’t currently covered by the Basel Amendment, potentially, which is household waste. I think it’s an interesting question. Should we be sending our household waste to the United States for burning or burying — likely on Indigenous land, frankly? No, we should not. Is that the intention of this bill? I’m not sure. Should we have a bigger conversation about that? Probably.
So there are a couple of things going on in the lack of clarity in this bill that will create all kinds of confusion on every level. That’s really what we’re trying to avoid so that we can get to the urgent business of stopping the worst of this trade immediately and scaling back our plastic waste so we ultimately don’t need to export any of it anywhere ultimately.
Ms. Gue: Could I make one further clarification?
[Translation]
Senator Miville-Dechêne: I have a question to ask you directly, Ms. Wirsig.
You made a statement in 2021 on the agreement between Canada and the United States regarding the export of plastic waste. At the time, you said that plastic waste should be eliminated at source.
Do we have the technology in Canada to do that? Are you dreaming or does such technology exist?
Ms. Wirsig: The technology we want is one that would mostly replace single-use packaging with no packaging, if packaging isn’t needed. Otherwise, packaging reuse systems would be needed to avoid generating so much waste, especially packaging waste. Then we’ll have to see: there are other sectors that generate as much waste as they do, like textiles and clothing, as well as other sectors like electronics and all that.
I think the technologies exist, but we should find solutions upstream. We need to look at the production of these products, as well as the reuse of this packaging and these products, as well as their repair, to avoid the production of waste. So yes, these technologies do exist, and there used to be a lot more of them. Now, we’ve adopted plastic as the magic material and we see the problems it causes to the environment, the economy and above all our health.
Senator Miville-Dechêne: However, all this will take time. All these upstream solutions are about changing mentalities; it’s huge. In the meantime, there are bales of plastic to dispose of — I’ll stop.
[English]
Senator Arnot: When I looked at the study the other day and heard some of the evidence, it seemed that the spirit of the bill, in principle, has great merit. But tonight I’ve heard dire evidence from the witnesses that it is really becoming quite perplexing. I am hearing that the bill will not improve the system and will not functionally make any real difference whatsoever to solving the problem the bill is being promoted as a solution to.
I have one question that has already been asked, but I want to understand it very well. What are the EU countries doing with their plastic waste — non-recycle, final disposal, hazardous plastics or special consideration plastics?
Second, I would like each one of the witnesses to augment their evidence tonight, in writing, with any recommendations they have to improve the bill, the reasons why and how that could be done.
Thirdly, I ask my colleagues in the Senate on this committee, is this issue so complex that it’s better to be addressed by a very comprehensive Senate study on the issue? It seems to me it’s much bigger than that’s been exposed here tonight. I might be missing something, but it seems that maybe a more comprehensive study is required.
Mr. Keliher: Thank you, senator. We are more than happy to provide any of our amendments or adjustments to the bill in writing within the next little bit.
One of the big challenges — not just with this bill, but looking at waste management in general, which does weave itself into this piece of legislation and also many other pieces of legislation and the way the business operates — is there is a challenge across Canada in that municipalities generally set the rules for what is recycling. It’s a municipal decision on what is in and what is out. All municipalities make that decision, for the most part, themselves, which causes challenges with what item goes in what bin. Because of that, materials that should be recycled in one community get thrown in the garbage in another and then, unfortunately, vice versa.
Standardization across the country of what goes in the blue bin is extremely important. Referring to a couple of the comments from the other witnesses is that when we look upstream, what materials can we consolidate on that list of plastics that we no longer allow into Canada and/or no longer produce ourselves therefore we don’t have to worry about what we’re exporting because it’s not being brought into Canada or made?
If there is a list — there are hundreds of types of plastics. If we could look at that list and parse it down to maybe half of that to start and keep whittling it down, then there is more opportunity for those materials to get in the proper bin, from a municipal context to begin with. Then there is the investment side of it for the businesses. Now they don’t have to sort 100 different of types of plastic. Maybe there is 20 or 30. But they build the systems to recycle those pieces of plastic. Then hopefully, again, it’s managed within our country, and we can manage it appropriately without having to really have a discussion on what we shouldn’t export because we would keep it here. The investment in that infrastructure needs to be there. We have to look at it very holistically from across the country in each municipality. The standardization is critical, and the waste reduction, in the first place, is the most important piece.
Ms. Gue: With respect to the EU, I will repeat the information I have about how many European parties to the Basel Convention are implementing the new requirements vis‑à‑vis plastic waste, and, in fact, I can also table with the committee a table of implementation strategies that is compiled under Basel. In general, these are legislative prohibitions on the exports of waste deemed hazardous or for special consideration to non‑European Union countries, in that case. That is a model to follow.
I’ll just quickly add that I would certainly welcome this committee’s further investigation of the issue through a study, and I wanted to be sure that you are aware in terms of potential timeline considerations that Canada will be hosting the fourth negotiating session for the proposed treaty on plastic pollution this spring in Ottawa. If the committee does have further advice or is able to investigate the issue more, that would be a very timely moment to table such a report.
The Chair: Thank you.
Senator McCallum: When you asked that question — is there a situation where all plastics would be suitable for disposal — the third point you made was the need for greater accountability to decrease the risk.
In all that we have talked about tonight, there is illegal transfer — that is impossible to track — there is unsorted scrap; there is poisoning of water and land; there are the mixed loads; unsafe recycling; the difficulty of singling out single-use plastics; and polluting other countries.
Are there other areas of accountability besides risk? I wanted to say that I think I am mixing up an issue here of citizen responsibility. There needs to be education and awareness of the consumption we have and the recycling, and I think it’s getting injected into this conversation, but I don’t know if it is. Is there a success story of plastic export? How have other countries demonstrated accountability? I know it’s a lot of questions.
Ms. Wirsig: Even the jurisdictions like Europe that are doing it best, let’s be clear, plastic waste and other waste is going to landfills in some of the poorer EU countries. A lot of waste is burned in Europe. We have no good global solution. I don’t know of any single country that is doing a fantastic job. That is why the urgency really is to turn off the tap, as I mentioned.
I do support everything that Ms. Gue and Mr. Keliher have said about turning off the tap, being very careful about the kinds of plastic that we allow to be made and used here. It may take a little bit, but it really shouldn’t take too long.
In terms of who is doing it right, I wish we could point to a jurisdiction that is doing it right. The countries that have decided that they want to try to live without plastic are trying things out, and they do need to be supported in terms of a global treaty because the countries that are most desperate to try to get away from plastic are the ones that don’t have waste management facilities today. They do tend to be in the global south where the plastic pollution — because we export a lot of single-use plastic products — not even waste, but products — plastic-producing countries export a lot of plastics that end up as waste there as well. We need to look at how to support those countries and certainly think about how we can do that ourselves by reducing production, use and disposal of plastics here at home. That is the responsible thing to do.
Senator Wells: Ms. Gue, I have a question for you on transparency, tracking and tracing. We have talked a little about that. Are export data readily available for plastics, broken down by HS code or composition? I won’t say real-time data, but do we have any timely data that is available that would show what is being sent and the transparency that would go along with that? Would that be helpful if we don’t have it?
Ms. Gue: That would be helpful. I don’t know that I can completely answer your question. The witness from Environmental Defence did share with the committee some very interesting data uncovered by the Basel Action Network, and I say “uncovered” because this is data that is not publicly available.
It is why — because those Annex II plastic wastes for special consideration do not require a permit for shipping to the U.S., I can only assume that that data, to the extent that it’s available, is incomplete, and at least what’s available — I completely agree with the sense of your question, that that’s very important information for Canada to have not only for our exports to the U.S., but the final destination of those shipments as well.
Senator Wells: The data is available for final destination if it’s the U.S., but the data is not available for shipping from Canada?
Ms. Gue: No, I do not believe it’s available — I do not believe either data set is complete. Ms. Wirsig, would you be able to add to this?
Ms. Wirsig: The existing codes for plastic scrap do not align with Basel, so it’s very difficult to know with any great detail what is being shipped. We don’t get particularly good real-time data. We get it after the fact.
What the Basel Action Network does is subscribe to some of these private sector data provision companies that will actually track shipments and tell you what is in them. They try to do that to augment what’s publicly available.
I think the plastics registry that the government is planning to introduce, if exporters are required to report on any plastics that they are exporting and what they are, would be useful. There is work at the Basel Convention — which Canada should support — to update those codes to ensure that they reflect the new Basel categories under the plastics amendments. Canada should absolutely support that because, again, doing stuff on our own is okay for knowing what is leaving Canada, but it is really difficult to track where things are going in a global sense and how things are coming here. What is coming here is also important for our own environment and health, and it is pretty impossible to do that now in a comprehensive and traceable way. It is a good point about those codes, they do need to be updated.
Senator Wells: Thank you. I have one question for Mr. Keliher, if I may.
If this legislation goes through and things are banned from being shipped from Canada, you are at the front end of the unintended consequence problem being the general manager at a waste management company.
What is your opinion on Canadian innovations like compostable checkout bags and things like that? Would that make the solution a little bit easier, that is, greater innovations for replacement of some of the non-compostable plastics that are out there?
Mr. Keliher: Thank you for the question, senator.
It is really important to look at alternatives to plastic. When we look at the compostable plastic bags, for the most part, especially in the city of Toronto, we operate what is called an anaerobic digestion facility where all our green bin materials go. Whether it is a plastic bag or a compostable bag that your compost or your green bin materials went in, those bags are shredded and ultimately float to the top of the system and are skimmed off. They are not put through the system as compostable. They make their way to landfill.
It is also extremely challenging for people who purchase those compostable bags, coffee pods, paper plates, forks or knives and who spend that extra money believing that what they are doing is good for the environment when, in fact, the vast majority of it does make its way to landfill and provides quite a few challenges at the organics management facilities.
The other challenge is that these materials get commingled. You might throw it in your blue bin by accident — such as if your parents are over, they use your coffee pods and they throw them in the blue bin by accident — now that contaminates what’s in the recycling stream and makes recycling even harder to recycle than where we are at today with the number of plastics that are in there. I think there are some good innovations that will come from this system.
Again, back to my comments wherein municipalities are responsible for creating their own waste management systems. There are composing facilities that use technology that we use in the city of Toronto, such as anaerobic digestion, and others use aerobic, which is a pile of material that you turn every once in a while like the compost in your backyard.
Again, waste management systems are designed for the community that they are in, what they can afford, what their values are and that changes from community to community. Understanding what is in those compostable materials and compostable plastics is extremely important but very challenging on the ground for waste management operators and municipalities.
[Translation]
Senator Verner: My question is for our witness from the City of Toronto. You listed a series of challenges and gave a lot of information on the steps to be taken to implement this bill. I’d like to hear your impressions quickly. The bill calls for a 12‑month implementation period. Is that a reasonable timeframe for you in Toronto?
[English]
Mr. Keliher: Thank you for the question, senator. Twelve months is quite challenging, to be honest, to implement any bill, especially one where there are inter-border challenges and exporting.
For us, for the most part, we do not export our materials. The city itself would not be impacted as much as the waste management operators across the country who do operate certain operations within the city. It would be challenging.
The other piece that would be important is to consult with the broader waste management community and get feedback on this bill. There are a number of very smart individuals across municipalities and the business community who can provide feedback to make sure that this is extremely robust but operational and meets the intentions of the Senate’s bill.
[Translation]
Senator Verner: Thank you.
Senator Carignan: My question is for Ms. Wirsig. You mentioned countries that perform better. If we were to follow Senator Arnot’s recommendation or discussion and do a more in‑depth study, to which countries should we turn our attention as being first in class or first in class in plastics management and in the export ban? Which countries handle their own plastic waste, and how do they handle it, with what elements of innovation?
Ms. Wirsig: Is there a perfect model? Probably not, but France is a good example to start with, because it’s part of Europe, so it applies these regulations that Ms. Gue talked about in terms of exporting waste. At the same time, France is trying to limit the production of waste and single-use plastics. This would be an interesting model for Canada. I think there are also some interesting countries in the south, but their systems are different from ours. That’s why I propose France as an interesting model to study here in Canada.
Senator Carignan: And Germany?
Ms. Wirsig: Yes, Germany and Austria are among those countries; absolutely.
Senator Carignan: All right.
The Chair: I’m well aware of what’s going on in Europe. There are laws dealing with the extended liability of manufacturers. Manufacturers are concerned about production costs at source, because they’re going to pay more. There’s also the circularity of a manufacturing sector, like aluminum. For plastics, I’m not sure, but I think there’s a category. There is no perfect solution or perfect country, but there is a body of legislation that ensures that the real problems are solved upstream. Can you summarize these complementary laws that are the real solution to our plastic management problem?
Ms. Wirsig: Is the question for me?
The Chair: Yes.
Ms. Wirsig: All right, thank you.
[English]
Let me list the kinds of policies that we see in Europe for sure, such as extended producer responsibility where, as you mentioned, they have a packaging regulation. Right now, they have a packaging directive that is a draft regulation that will do things like require unwrapping — no packaging — for certain things that will require reuse and systems to be established that require deposit return systems for things like beverage containers. These kinds of things will complement rules that stop waste exports. If we’re creating less waste, we’re having less exports.
It is clear that Europe is a bit ahead of Canada on circularity. That is partly just a function of their economy.
The reason we produce so much waste per capita is we are a resource-extraction economy. That is our system. We take a bunch of stuff out of the ground and that is what our wealth is based on. We don’t worry so much about what happens to it at the end. If we have to export it, we export it. It is very environmentally damaging. Europe doesn’t have as many resources. They are forced into a situation of having to find how to reuse resources over and over again.
The extended producer responsibility and polluter pays responsibility is key, but then also real rules to redesign products and packaging and real bans on problematic products and problematic materials are all part of the mix that we’re going to have to look at. These are things that are coming up as subjects for the global treaty that Canada is going to need to take a close look at and champion these solutions collectively with the other high ambition countries if we are going to get somewhere in this country.
The Chair: Thank you, senators and our witnesses, for your participation today.
(The committee adjourned.)