THE STANDING SENATE COMMITTEE ON ENERGY, THE ENVIRONMENT AND NATURAL RESOURCES
EVIDENCE
OTTAWA, Thursday, October 19, 2023
The Standing Senate Committee on Energy, the Environment and Natural Resources met with videoconference this day at 9:17 a.m. [ET] to study Bill S-234, An Act to amend the Canadian Environmental Protection Act, 1999 (final disposal of plastic waste); and, in camera, to study a draft agenda (future business).
Senator Rosa Galvez (Chair) in the chair.
[Translation]
The Chair: My name is Rosa Galvez, I’m a senator from Quebec and I am chair of the committee.
Today, we are conducting a meeting of the Standing Senate Committee on Energy, the Environment and Natural Resources.
I’d like to start with a quick reminder. Before asking or answering questions, I would ask committee members and witnesses in the room to refrain from leaning too close to the microphone or removing their earpieces when doing so. This will avoid any feedback that could have a negative impact on the committee staff in the room.
I’m going to ask my colleagues on the committee to introduce themselves, starting on my right.
Senator Boisvenu: Senator Pierre-Hugues Boisvenu from Quebec. I’m replacing Senator Wells, who is absent today.
Senator Gignac: Clément Gignac, senator from Quebec.
[English]
Senator Sorensen: Hi, Karen Sorensen, senator from Alberta.
[Translation]
Senator Verner: Good morning. Josée Verner from Quebec.
Senator Massicotte: Paul Massicotte from Quebec.
[English]
Senator Arnot: Good morning, Senator David Arnot from Saskatchewan.
[Translation]
The Chair: I would like to welcome you, colleagues, and all 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).
As you will see on your modified agenda, we have today three witnesses. We have Karel Ménard, Director General of Front commun québécois pour une gestion écologique des déchets. We have Frances Edmonds, Head of Sustainable Impact for HP Canada. We also have Jean-Luc Lavergne, Chief Executive Officer and Founder of the Lavergne Group.
Welcome to our witnesses. Thank you so much for being with us. Each one of you will have five minutes for your opening remarks. We will start with Mr. Ménard, followed by Ms. Edmonds and then Mr. Lavergne.
The floor is yours, Mr. Ménard.
[Translation]
Karel Ménard, Director General, Front commun québécois pour une gestion écologique des déchets: Good morning. I’m Karel Ménard, Director General of the Front commun québécois pour une gestion écologique des déchets. I’m going to start by giving you an overview of plastics, which I’m sure you’re already familiar with. In Canada, according to Statistics Canada, 6.3 million tonnes of plastic were used in 2018, and barely 10% of this total was recycled, the rest being disposed of or incinerated.
Around 200,000 tonnes of plastic were also exported, mainly to the U.S., during the same period. From there, the plastic could also be shipped to Asian countries, notably for recovery purposes, including energy recovery, when used as fuel. By our standards, this was not really recycling or recovery. Plastic exports, once out of the country, have no traceability. Plastics recovered from computers or even municipal waste collection can end up anywhere in the world. In the case of the ocean of plastic, in particular, there’s a little bit of our plastic inside. There is no traceability with regard to the plastic exports generated in our country.
The export of plastic for disposal should be banned, obviously, but plastic that is exported for recycling, if it’s not produced to standards equal to or better than what we have here in Canada, shouldn’t be allowed either. For this to happen, there would have to be traceability, and the exporter of the plastic, the broker in particular, would have to produce evidence to federal authorities to ensure that the plastic won’t cause damage to human health and the environment in other countries — that it’s not, in fact, disguised disposal.
Banning the export of plastic for disposal, even when the recycling of the material is substandard, is a good thing, but we still need to know what to do with it here. As I said at the outset, 90% of the plastic generated in Canada is actually disposed of. So, if we stop exporting for disposal, we’ll end up with that plastic right here at home. It’s better than exporting it, we agree, but we need to work more upstream with this plastic.
As for plastic recycling, it’s a solution, but it’s not “the” solution. As I said at the start of my statement, 90% of the plastic produced in Canada is not recycled. Because we don’t have the infrastructure to recycle that amount of plastic, and we don’t have the infrastructure to recover it. I’m not just talking about plastic from selective collection, but plastic from all the objects around us that are made of plastic. Right now, we’re not in a position to recover this plastic for recycling.
In any case, recycling has environmental, social and economic impacts. Perhaps we need to work more upstream on the production of plastic objects, especially single-use ones, and limit their production, not only because of their damage to the integrity of the landscape or their potential impact on marine wildlife, but also on the environment and human health. It’s also important to understand that around 50% of the plastics we generate are found in single-use plastic objects. We also need to ensure that the measures put in place limit the waste of resources, because this is indeed a waste of resources.
To this end, we need to put pressure on the government to limit the production of single-use plastics on the market, and work towards a national strategy of reducing plastics at source, not just recycling. This is really important.
There are also plastics for which there are no means of recycling or recovery systems to eventually recycle them. This should also include measures to limit the additives or colorants that are put into plastics to make them flame-retardant, to make them flexible or for any other reason.
We should also work on the question of the durability of the plastics or objects we produce and on their necessity, so really limiting single use, encouraging reuse when we can’t abolish plastics and, ultimately, ensuring that a plastic object that is put on the market is recyclable and accepted by recycling infrastructures in Canada. Just because something says it’s recyclable doesn’t mean it will be recycled. We have to make sure that it will actually be recycled.
Lastly, we need to set reduction targets at source; we therefore need to know current plastic production and aim to reduce our production of plastic objects in this country over the next few years to give us reliable indicators. Thank you, senators.
The Chair: Thank you, Mr. Ménard.
[English]
The floor is yours, Ms. Edmonds.
Frances Edmonds, Head of Sustainable Impact, HP Canada: Thank you, Madam Chair. Thank you for inviting me to be here.
I should explain that I wear a number of hats. I represent Canada’s most sustainable technology company and will send proof of that. However, perhaps the easiest way to prove it is to say that we are listed as one of the top 100 most sustainable corporations worldwide by Canada’s very own Corporate Knights. I was also on the expert panel assembled by the Council of Canadian Academies for Environment and Climate Change Canada — the Expert Panel on the Circular Economy. I currently sit on Minister Guilbeault’s advisory panel for the Federal Sustainable Development Strategy. So I hope to give you informative and well-rounded answers to your questions.
I’m very happy to learn that you are looking to address the issue of plastic waste in Canada. Thank you. As a citizen, I pick up plastic waste every day. As a sustainability professional, I have organized global shoreline cleanups, and as a leading company, as you will hear from the Lavergne Group today, we actively source ocean-bound plastics from Haiti and put those back into new HP products.
I will turn to the proposed bill. In Canada, I have worked on implementing the extended producer responsibility programs for electronics as well as some of the packaging regulations. As you know, for more than 30 years, we have relied on the tool of extended producer responsibility and we’ve invested probably billions of dollars — nobody actually knows — to garner a circularity rate of just 6.1%. That’s according to the expert panel report. By any stretch of the imagination, that’s a failure — and a costly one at that. It has resulted in this export of mixed plastic waste that you are trying to address.
What are the tools that we have in our collective tool boxes to tackle the climate, biodiversity and inequality crises we face? Shortly, you will hear from Jean-Luc Lavergne, the CEO of the Lavergne Group, a small circular plastics company here in Quebec. We have been partnering with them for over two decades to incorporate more circular, ocean-bound and other plastic wastes into our new products. The combined work and results have enabled HP, a global multinational, to set aggressive goals for circularity in recycled plastic content. We will aim to be 75% circular by 2030 and have 30% post-consumer recycled plastics across our entire print and PC portfolio by 2025. This can be done.
As a leader, we know there is a cost to being a leader. But what we witness in the Canadian marketplace today is that the market signal — namely procurement — actually encourages a race to the bottom in sustainability performance — not a race to the top.
Simply put, governments across the country — and specifically the federal government — failed to include requirements for the outputs of these extended producer responsibility programs, and specifically plastics, that we have invested so heavily in. As such, there’s no incentive to create cleaner feedstocks of plastics coming out of our nationwide recycling facilities. They have no value because there is no demand for them. In short, the plastics are really a waste and not a resource, and hence they have been exported, landfilled or, worse, incinerated.
Our previous testimony gave an example of that, but I’ll give you another example just to make it very real for you. Environment and Climate Change Canada just issued a procurement document to purchase 7,500 notebook computers. There were no recycled plastics requirements in that bid document, and it’s the same the government over. So where are these plastics supposed to go? We spend all this money on recycling them, but we haven’t created a place for them to go.
Let’s take a second to consider the definition of circular or sustainable procurement from Dr. Bob Willard, one of Canada’s great sustainability professionals. We’re looking to buy with the best value for the most circular services or goods from the most circular supplier, in alignment with the government’s stated purpose and goals.
The many policy and regulatory tools that the federal government has started to introduce around plastics, the UN treaty on plastics and other international treaties like the Basel Convention will start to change the plastics market in Canada.
The fastest and most nimble tool we have is circular procurement. The timing could not be more critical. Next year, the federal government will issue — and I’m just talking about PCs here — a national master standing offer for PCs, which will be in place for five years. That will take us very close to a point where we should have reduced carbon emissions by 40% to 45% and have achieved zero plastic waste. Without implementing circular plastics procurement, we will not achieve this.
Canada’s small and medium-sized business ecosystem is simply not activating on carbon or plastic because there is no market signal to do it. I am asking you to create the change in how we buy rather than banning exports of plastics, which can have unintended consequences. I’m sure you’ll have some questions on that.
Madam Chair, thank you for the opportunity to speak today.
The Chair: Thank you, Ms. Edmonds.
Jean-Luc Lavergne, CEO and Founder, Lavergne: My name is Jean-Luc Lavergne. I’m the CEO of the Lavergne Group. We make plastics circular. I thank you for inviting me today because this is exciting that I am able to share this. We are based in Montreal, Quebec, but we have facilities all around the world.
We take end-of-life plastics from different sources and turn them back into raw materials, replacing the need for virgin materials. One of the things we do, which is exciting, is the relationship we’ve had with Frances Edmonds for over two decades. We are taking the end-of-life cartridges and turning them back into raw materials to make new cartridges again. We’ve been doing this at scale for more than 20 years.
The recycled material that we produce meets the performance of virgin specifications. As much as some people say it’s not doable, we are the living proof of doing this. One of our factories is in Montreal, Quebec.
We have the great fortune of working with companies such as HP and other brands that are committed to saying, “Let’s take the next step towards figuring out what we can do with our end-of-life products.” This is exciting. We have been doing this commercially; this is not a lab project. People who visit our facilities can see for real how this is handled.
We look at plastics, especially the thermoplastics, as a potential good resource if it’s well collected. I know we’ve gone through this for many years. If I look at the curbside collections, there have been challenges, but as we get to new technologies and things are better, we take that resource and turn it into good feedstock for various applications.
When I look at what we’re doing in this part right now, we have to be careful. I understand the ban on shipping overseas; I’m fully aware that there could be issues. If we do things right, we have proof that we could make it viable, commercial and also very cost-effective.
For me, when I look at this, I’m obviously happy to answer all questions and see how you see this, but you see our facilities; it is living proof that there are things that could be done.
Yes, there is only a small amount of plastics that is being collected right now. The challenge is we have to find more of these companies who are willing to buy the product. By doing so, we are able to turn this circular. The fact that we could reduce the carbon footprint instead of making new plastics with our product is also significant in our reduction of carbon emissions.
I will be more than happy to answer your questions, if there’s anything, by all means. Thank you.
The Chair: Thank you to our witnesses.
Senator Arnot: Thank you, witnesses. I have some succinct questions. I’m hoping we can hear each witness answer them.
With respect to this study, we’ve heard advocates, industry and government officials all agree that there is a need to reduce environmental harms related to plastic and toxic waste. However, there are few concrete actions that are being proposed to create the necessary reduction.
This committee has also heard there are jurisdictional issues between the federal government and the provincial government and that oversight, investigation and enforcement are prerequisites.
This question is for all of you: Does Bill S-234 go far enough? Is this bill innovative enough? What innovations and investments do you believe need to be made to ensure the Canadian Environmental Protection Act, or CEPA, will serve its intended purpose proactively rather than reactively?
The second question has been stated by Mr. Ménard. Only 9% of plastic waste is recycled. With this bill, presumably fewer hazardous wastes will be exported from Canada. If production of plastics goes unabated, then more plastics will remain in Canada, very hazardous waste. What do you think needs to occur to address that problem, and is it in this act?
The Chair: Who wants to go first?
[Translation]
Mr. Ménard: Thank you, senator.
In fact, in my presentation I answered your questions, and it’s true that the bill doesn’t go far enough. Banning the export of plastics for disposal is a good thing, but we still need to know what to do with these materials if they remain in the country. Only 10% of plastics in Canada are actually recycled, which means that 90% are not. They can’t be recycled right now because the infrastructure isn’t available. Nor, as Mr. Lavergne said, are the collection systems. Plastic can and will be considered a hazardous material.
The idea is that recycling is part of the solution. We talk a lot about the circular economy, or the circularity index — It’s the tonnage of material we recycle compared to the tonnage of material we generate that gives us the circularity index.
We’re always looking at the tonnage of material we recycle, when we should be looking at the denominator, the material we generate and produce, and we don’t do that enough. Nothing has ever proven to me — and I’ve been working in the environmental sector for 30 years — that recycling plastic avoids the use of virgin resources. On the contrary, it all adds to the supply of plastic.
So, recycling is often used for — Yes, it’s nice, it’s beautiful, it’s good for the environment, but the best solution lies at the consumption and production level, and more and more plastics are single-use. Yes, for certain objects, like cards for example, the solution is undoubtedly recovery methods that will be significantly effective, and factories dedicated to recycling. However, for the hundreds of thousands or even millions of tonnes of plastic that are generated, there is nothing, and that’s what we need to tackle at source.
Recycling won’t solve all the problems — on the contrary. Recycling too, particularly through pyrolysis, gasification or even energy recovery processes, is causing problems for the environment and human health in some provinces. Legislation is lacking in this area, because it’s called reclamation or recycling. The best solution — and this is what this bill should put forward, or at least mention — lies in reducing waste at source, i.e. in production and consumption.
We need to start by setting reduction benchmarks or indicators in terms of production, and yes, I’d say this bill goes far enough. It’s not bad, but it’s certainly incomplete in the current order of things.
[English]
The Chair: Does anyone want to add or complement that answer?
Ms. Edmonds: Thank you, senator, there are two questions. What innovation needs to be made? I would argue that Mr. Lavergne has shown, as with the partnership with HP, that we have the innovation. We know how to take end-of-life plastics and put them back into new plastics whilst incorporating other used plastics, like used drinking water bottles.
Today, in the plant in Quebec, we’re using 1 million used drinking water bottles a day in the process to make the new plastics for HP products. It’s technically possible. We are doing it at scale.
What will lead to less plastic waste in Canada is to create the demand for those recycled plastics. We simply have no demand. We have not closed the loop in our systems today. It is evidenced by the requests for proposals that I talked to you about.
The federal government alone, 13% of GDP, if you use that money to actually create the demand and close the circle, we would have a much more effective system. It’s the fact that there is nowhere for that plastic to go today and no incentive to do a better job of sorting it because it’s considered a waste, not a resource.
Mr. Lavergne: Exactly. When you look at plastics, all thermoplastics are technically recyclable.
The challenge you see is what we talked about. In our case, we deal with HP, a 20-year customer who was willing to go all the way, taking a huge step in saying, “I was using a virgin material producer,” and turning to a small company like us and then making a product viable. By the way, there is not only a cartridge business; there are other plastics we create. Technically, plastics are doable.
In our case, we have invested in this. Thankfully, we also have more clients getting on the bandwagon. I’m sitting today with Dyson. That’s why I am here. Dyson is another step that’s going into this kind of circularity.
We see what’s going on in Europe. Banning is one thing. You’re going to ban to replace with what? When you look at what plastics has replaced, plastics is actually a very good material if it’s well treated and well collected.
We’re going through changes in Quebec right now with the revamping of the blue and green boxes and the collection and deposit system. When you look at this, we are willing to invest. Right now we’re looking at potential projects to take the blue and green boxes and take these products back into resources for people who are producing this.
As much as I hear from the other person with regard to the recycling of plastics, it works. We’re living proof. We see what’s going on. The challenge, though, is that if HP, for instance, who’s talking about the fact they could sell their product, has a competitor who doesn’t do any of that stuff. And on a level scale, when you buy the products, you as a consumer have the right to say, “I’m doing this or that.” That’s why I think today we have to announce it. We have been very low-profile. We’ve been in business for more than 30 years, but today that’s why I’m speaking out. I said it’s important to do so.
That’s why, for us, when we have people who come and visit our facilities, they can physically see what is. We want to invest more. We want companies like HP to come on board. We’re doing it. We’re living proof today. We’ve been doing this, as I said. I happen to be in Quebec; that’s where I was born, but we also have a facility in Belgium that started last year; we have another one in Vietnam that we have had for 15 years. We are going to continue to add more facilities.
I think banning is not where this has to go. I also agree with the fact that in some cases it should not go to other countries, because it’s not disposed of properly. We are willing to do even more. There have to be some corrections. As you can see, we’re living proof that plastics are recyclable and it’s done at scale.
Senator Arnot: Witnesses, I’d like your expression on this question: Do you think that the Senate should be studying this issue in a much more comprehensive and more in-depth way to better serve Canadians with a study that would address the issues the way you’ve articulated them?
Ms. Edmonds: There is a whole infrastructure and ecosystem around plastics. I’ll give you an example. People who are exporting mixed-waste plastics, eventually — under the Basel Convention — it would be illegal to do that. People who are illegally exporting mixed-waste plastics will continue to do that.
If you put a requirement in for a company like HP, I’ll use ink cartridges as an example; we collect them in Canada, ship them over the border to our facility in La Vergne, Tennessee, where we mechanically disassemble them. Those plastics come back to the Lavergne Group in Montreal for proper processing. So we would have to prove that those empty cartridges that are now going across the border are going for recycling.
Every time you add a cost of proving something to recycled content when it’s competing against virgin plastics, you’re increasing that differential. That’s not a good thing. You want the recycled plastic to be cheaper than the virgin plastic. We need to think of the larger systems issues and what the unintended consequences can be.
I absolutely agree with you. I don’t want plastic to be going to the wrong place, but it’s part of a wider ecosystem and understanding the market forces; we obviously haven’t done that with our EPR programs for 30 years. We have not considered that.
For the most part, we’ve left the municipalities to their own devices to try to figure out what to do with this waste, rather than creating the pull for the used resources that are coming out of them.
[Translation]
Senator Massicotte: Thank you to the three of you for being with us this morning. In response to my colleague’s question, I’d like to ask you this. What is your opinion of Bill S-234? Do you like it? Does the bill have any shortcomings? If you don’t answer, it’s because you don’t have any comments to make, but it’s still a subject that concerns you. Do you agree with my understanding?
Mr. Ménard, we assume you don’t agree?
Mr. Ménard: No, we agree with the conclusion of the bill, except that it’s a good opportunity to move forward. Indeed, as Mr. Lavergne said, plastic is theoretically recyclable, but it isn’t all the time.
We’d like to see plastic production considered upstream in terms of production. In the context of the climate crisis, recycling or increasing demand isn’t going to solve the situation. We need to start thinking differently. As Ms. Edmonds also said, we need to look at the issue holistically. Yes, recycling is good, but maybe it’s time to think about product sustainability or even reuse, something we don’t see much of, to reduce plastic consumption in the first place.
This bill opens the door to all that. The idea is not to ban everything, because plastic is indeed a flexible and durable product. It may also have the defects of its qualities, i.e. it is durable and persistent in the environment, and, unfortunately, far too many chemicals are injected into it to give it certain mechanical qualities.
The bill needs to open doors by focusing more on consumption and production. This does not preclude recycling and recovery, which are complementary but not the only solution. So I say to you that we have an opportunity here, and it’s up to us to take advantage of it collectively.
Senator Massicotte: Mr. Ménard, I’d like some clarification. To summarize what you said, 90% of plastic is exported and 10% remains in the country. You mentioned a lack of infrastructure.
Which infrastructures are you referring to in particular? Are you talking about space? Are you talking about a building or a technology? What are you lacking in order to achieve your objectives as such?
Mr. Ménard: In fact, 90% of Canada’s 6.8 million tonnes of plastic is disposed of, while only 10% is recycled. So I wasn’t talking about what isn’t exported as opposed to what stays in the country, but about what is disposed of as opposed to what is recycled or reclaimed.
If we wanted to recycle the remaining 5.4 million tonnes of plastic, that’s where we’d run out of infrastructure. We wouldn’t have enough plants, because not all plastics are the same. There are hundreds of types of plastic. There are now emerging plastics, such as PLA, polylactic acids, and bio-sourced plastics.
In reality, one plastic bottle may not be the same as another from a competing brand. Each plastic has to be recycled with similar plastics, which is why recycling plastic is so complex.
For example, when we’re talking about a shell, we’re talking about much the same plastics or the same components. So, it’s a good thing in a stream dedicated to shells, whereas if we’re talking about all the plastic products generated in Canada, we’re talking about pencils, earphones, mice, telephones and computers. So we’re talking about a variety of components and melting points. Not all are thermoformed plastics. In short, there are a multitude of types of plastic, and the infrastructure doesn’t allow us to recycle them, precisely because there’s no uniformity when it comes to products made from plastic.
That’s another debate that would be interesting to look into one day. So, a recycling infrastructure will be reserved for a certain type of plastic or a similar type of plastic, and it’s impossible to do that at present, because, to collect similar plastics, you’d have to have reverse collection and reserved recovery systems.
In Quebec in particular, selective collection only recovers seven types of plastic, minus plastic No. 6, polystyrene. There are thousands of types of plastic, and that’s a problem. That’s why I say we should review our production and regulate it to produce plastics that are recyclable, reusable, sustainable and necessary. We need to work upstream rather than finding downstream solutions, which I don’t think are really solutions at all. If we have to develop markets to produce recycled plastic, it’s unfortunately a false good idea, because we’re also increasing the supply of plastic. What we would like to see, especially in the current environmental context, is a reduction in the quantity of plastic put on the market. I’m not saying that we shouldn’t recycle it, but we shouldn’t bet everything on recycling or on a circular economy based on recycling.
Senator Gignac: Welcome to all our witnesses.
Mr. Ménard, thank you for enlightening us. I appreciated the fact that you explained things in terms we can understand.
I understand that the bill doesn’t go far enough, and I agree with you. I draw your attention to the fact that in the Senate we have the flexibility to add comments at the end of a report, before a bill is passed. Some of my colleagues and I will be able to draw on your comments to add our own.
You said that 90% of plastics are not recycled and that we need to tackle the source. To tackle the source, i.e. reduce pollution or consumption, I’m a big believer in price signals. Since I’m an economist by training, I’d like to ask you this: do you think that the carbon tax is an effective economic policy tool for creating price signals that can have an effect on reducing the production or consumption of single-use plastic products?
Mr. Ménard: Thank you, Senator Gignac. That’s a very good observation.
Indeed, the carbon tax and all eco-tax measures, if well targeted, are effective measures. This has already been said about EPR, or extended producer responsibility. The very basis of this measure is that the more a product pollutes or causes problems for the environment, the more it should cost to buy — I think it was Mr. Lavergne who said this — which will influence consumer choice.
However, in reality, there are several EPR programs across the country, notably for electronic products. Unfortunately, the objective is not being achieved: we are not necessarily reducing or improving the quality of plastic products on the market in terms of recyclability and quantity. We need to make sure we apply eco-tax measures, such as the carbon tax. However, I haven’t studied this aspect of the tax.
We have no choice. There are external costs to pollution, both social and economic, if plastic is burned in other countries. According to Statistics Canada, it costs $7.8 billion to dispose of plastic.
So there are costs that are not internalized in the purchase price of products made with plastic. This is what EPR, extended producer responsibility programs, should be doing, and they are not currently being implemented. If the carbon tax can contribute to this, it would indeed be a good idea. If a plastic is polluting, it’s because there are costs that we don’t pay. We’re living on credit with certain objects made of plastic. If the carbon tax can solve this problem, it would be a good measure, indeed.
Senator Gignac: As for the carbon tax or carbon market, Quebec and California have a different system.
I don’t know if Ms. Edmonds wanted to comment.
[English]
Ms. Edmonds: Thank you, yes. Absolutely, market forces need to be considered here. What do we need to get investment in better sorting of the plastics that we’re generating today? We need a pull in the marketplace, and we need a market signal. That market signal is absolutely missing in procurement.
Governments across the country have a very simple tool: use the procurement, the dollars they’re already spending, to get more of what we want. If we could actually create that pull, the investment would bring about better sorting and having more of the plants that Jean-Luc is talking about. The technology is not the issue. The investment is the issue. Where does that investment come from? Jean-Luc will tell you that it’s from competing against virgin producers. Are they impacted by the carbon tax? I would ask you to consider that. We would hope that carbon taxing is not going to impact the recycling infrastructure, but we need more investment in that, and that’s only going to come about when there is a pull in the marketplace for more recycled content in the goods and services that we’re buying today.
[Translation]
Senator Gignac: Mr. Lavergne, I’d like to hear your comments. I’d like to tell you that I’d be very interested in visiting your plant, because I think it’s a source of hope. It’s a positive, optimistic signal that it’s possible to have the technology to recycle, and that encourages me.
I understand that when you take the virgin product versus the recycled product, the carbon tax or the carbon footprint is an element that can help you. Why aren’t there more plants like yours in this country? We give subsidies to battery plants to attract people by telling them we’re reducing the carbon footprint, so why don’t we have more plants like yours across the country?
Mr. Lavergne: Thank you very much. I’ll answer your question by expanding on that point. If people come and visit our plant, they’ll see that we don’t just process one material. We now have technologies that enable us to take several materials that are separated by material, by colour. That’s why we’re able to make products.
In the past, we weren’t very well known. The difficulty we’re having is that we’re fighting against the people who make the raw material. We’re talking about big petrochemical plants. I won’t name them. I think you know several of them.
When you take a material made from recycled products and manage to reduce the carbon footprint by a fairly considerable percentage, that means it works. On the other hand, there’s a myth, there’s a perception and there are also bad stories in recycled product. Some manufacturers fail to do a good job, so people don’t dare use recycled material.
I went to a car manufacturer and there were a dozen people around a table, including engineers. As soon as we talked about the recycled product, three-quarters of their brains were outside the room, because they didn’t want to experience that.
Over the years, I had to fight to find companies like HP Canada, which decided to take the plunge and agreed to work with me. In our company, learning is very much based on practice. Why aren’t there more factories like ours? Because it’s not easy. When I started my company, I was way ahead of my time. Today, we’re talking about the electric car launched by Mr. Musk. He changed the industry. It was an industry that was completely [technical difficulties]. We look at petrochemical plants that produce plastic and harvest natural resources. These plants have been doing this for 100 years. Bringing them into our context is pretty special.
For our part, we’re going to continue to invest, because companies like HP Canada are ready to come on board with us. We still have to make sure we raise awareness among these people. What are we going to do with the reduction? What are we going to replace it with? Plastic has replaced materials that are even more harmful to the environment. I have a team of chemists who know what to do with polymers, and they do it very well. Some polymers contain additives that are banned today, which was not the case at one time. I’m talking about flame retardants. We have succeeded in removing these additives thanks to technologies in which we continue to invest. In my opinion, it’s not a question of reduction; I think it’s a question of reuse. We need to do this wherever possible. Repair is fine too, but recycling is a viable solution. I’m a case in point. That’s why I invite you to come and visit my plant and the future plants we’re going to build.
Senator Boisvenu: I’m going to ask some questions that might seem trivial, because I haven’t followed the debate from the beginning.
My questions are for Mr. Lavergne. I congratulate you on the work you’re doing.
Quebec recently announced an extension of the deposit system, particularly for plastic bottles.
We know that in some Central American countries, plastic bottles are a scourge in rivers and fields. Could we have a deposit strategy for all plastics? When we buy an appliance, the boxes containing it are filled with plastic. Couldn’t the concept of a deposit be applied to all plastics, so that Canadians and Quebecers can recycle them rather than discard them?
For example, the deposit system for aluminum cans is a success in Quebec, and almost 95% of aluminum cans are recycled, i.e. returned to the production chain. For soft drinks that are returnable, there’s a very high recovery rate, whereas non-returnable water bottles go to waste most of the time. Couldn’t we have a deposit strategy for all plastics, not just for containers containing liquids or solids, but also for those used as packaging?
Mr. Lavergne: Yes, that’s a good point. The deposit will be extended to all beverages. In the past, deposits were not introduced for recycling, but to protect markets. Deposits began in the beer industry, where people wanted to sell beer, but couldn’t because they needed a collection system. Today, when we talk about recycling, we need to revamp that; we need to find that again. The expansion of selective collection and deposits will also take place in the ICI on recycle programs. These are systems that can work. In fact, for us, this is one of the projects in which we want to invest considerably. We’re talking about an investment of hundreds of millions of dollars that we want to make to show that we can recycle materials. We know that deposits work best, in the sense that people are responsible for taking back the material at the end of its life.
You’ll see: in the industry, we’re going to start talking about products as services. A product will never belong to you; you can always take it back. The manufacturer will even take responsibility for this. When you look at the extension of the deposit system, the modernization of all this will help companies like ours to continue recycling. The deposit and selective collection that will be in place by 2025-26 will enable us to revisit all this.
When it comes to plastics in the blue or green box, we need to educate consumers. It’s sometimes said that consumers put everything in these boxes. I’ve even seen diapers, but diapers used in a selective collection box don’t work. There’s education to be done.
I also think that what brings us to talk about this today is that technologies will continue to improve. What we had 20 years ago is not the same today, and technology continues to improve. Artificial intelligence is also taking hold.
For us, what we’re seeing right now is a material that is recyclable, well processed, well collected — I couldn’t say only selective collection or only deposit; it’s a mix of both — but with the right education, it could work well. I don’t know if I’m answering your question.
Senator Boisvenu: You’ve answered it well. Recycling is a provincial responsibility.
Should Canada have a national recycling strategy, in collaboration with the provinces? Right now, each province has its own policy, laws and regulations for recycling and waste management, but we don’t have a pan-Canadian strategy. Shouldn’t we adopt a much stronger strategy to encourage the provinces to move forward at the same pace, I might ask?
Mr. Lavergne: It’s funny you should say that, because Quebec is in the process of having Éco Entreprises Québec become the owner of the material; naturally, they want to make sure that the material is recycled in Quebec. At the same time, discussions are under way with Ontario.
It’s new, of course, it’s not something that’s been done for 50 years, it’s very recent, but we’re coming up with solutions. With a certain amount of management, this could be done across Canada.
The problem we have in Canada is that we have a population of around 35 million, and it’s a big country. When it comes to collection and recovery, it’s expensive. You have to be aware of that. Given all that, what we’ve managed to do — That’s why we have models that allow us to have hybrid versions of what we do, where we can do some processing and then bring the material to the plants to be processed.
Making a global factory doesn’t work either. Our DNA is to set up several small plants all over the world. When I say small, I mean big. The disadvantage we have in Canada is population. The West and the East can function. In the centre of the country, it’s a little more difficult. Still, we can say that plastic is recyclable, and for thermoplastics that are properly processed, properly collected, we can do something with that.
The Chair: Thank you. Mr. Ménard, would you like to complete the answer?
Mr. Ménard: Yes. Senator Boisvenu’s questions are very pertinent.
As far as deposits are concerned, we’ve been working on this issue for several decades, and we’re very familiar with it. In fact, the deposit will be extended on November 1 only to aluminum cans that are not currently subject to a deposit. The deposit will be postponed for water and wine bottles until March 1, 2025. This is not good news for us. The deposit is a complementary recovery method to selective collection that could be very well adapted to products such as computer products, cell phones and others. In Quebec, the recovery rate for cell phones is only 5%. For example, if there were a $5 deposit on a cell phone, it would be collected in a dedicated stream. We’d just have cell phones in a box. Recyclers would surely be interested in these products, because they have a fairly high intrinsic value. The deposit could be applied to many other plastic products.
As far as recycling is concerned, planning and targets are a provincial responsibility. In Quebec, for example, aluminum is not recycled. Aluminum is produced from bauxite, but aluminum cans are not recycled. They’re recycled in Georgia or Kentucky. They make a very long journey. Even aluminum made from raw materials like bauxite isn’t transformed into cans here in Quebec. It’s exported to the United States, and then it comes back to us.
As Mr. Lavergne said, there’s also a market issue. Ideally, everything would be recycled as locally as possible and even disposed of as locally as possible. In reality, that’s not necessarily possible, unless you pay astronomical costs, which I agree would be unwise.
It would indeed be desirable to have federal or inter-provincial standards, because at present, what we see in terms of recycling and other measures such as bans is that certain products are banned by municipalities or even provinces. It’s a mosaic, and a cat couldn’t find her kittens in it. It gets very confusing. Will there be a plastic bag ban police force? In one place, you can distribute them, in another, you can’t. It’s getting very confusing for the consumer. It becomes very confusing for the consumer and the citizen.
I was talking about a ban. Certain plastic products simply shouldn’t exist, period. This should be possible so that everyone is on the same wavelength, both the provinces and the municipalities, which are increasingly moving forward with measures at their own level, because they feel that the provincial governments, particularly Quebec, are not going far enough or fast enough when it comes to managing single-use plastics.
Senator Boisvenu: You said that the cans were sent to the United States. Isn’t there a plant in Sherbrooke, the Ball plant, that recycles aluminum cans?
Mr. Ménard: No. There’s no secondary aluminum recycling in Quebec. I’m from Sherbrooke, by the way.
Senator Boisvenu: Ball receives cans, melts them down and remakes the bottoms of the cans, the ones that keep the pressure in the can. This plant has been in operation for almost 20 years now.
Mr. Ménard: If that’s true, it’s news to me. I don’t know anything about it. The information I have is that the plastic is recovered either through the deposit...
Senator Boisvenu: I’m telling you this because my son used to work there as an engineer.
Mr. Ménard: I see. That’s something to check out, Senator Boisvenu. Any information you can impart is welcome. According to the information I have, the cans go to two plants in Kentucky and Georgia for recycling. In fact, the cans aren’t formed here, so they come to us already formed from these places by truck carrying empty cans that are bottled here, and once the product is consumed, they go back there to be recycled.
The Chair: Thank you.
[English]
Before giving the floor to Senator McCallum, I would like to give a summary of five points that you all have mentioned and a question.
[Translation]
I totally agree that extended manufacturer responsibility is something we absolutely have to look at. It’s important that manufacturers tell us what to do with their products once their useful life is over, and how to do it.
I also understand that we need to improve collection, because collection rates for materials with recyclable potential are not homogeneous. Aluminum is much more widely collected; in Europe, 93% is collected, while in Quebec it’s around 60%. We need to improve this collection.
Secondly, it’s interesting and extraordinary, Mr. Lavergne, that you have a method, a technology and a technique for improving the classification of various plastics. Indeed, there’s a whole range of polymers: some are flexible, others are hard and have different values. Some have different additives that can be toxic or harmless, but I know there are a lot of developments in this area that we need to look at to do this processing locally, to always reduce the carbon footprint. I understand that.
There’s also the question of circularity: I understand that there’s no signal — either from the market or the government — to tell people that this is a product, a new material that has been recycled and is available today for their use. I also remember that, in paper fibre, it was like that in the beginning; Canada and Quebec produced a lot of paper fibre and all our paper fibre went to the U.S., because the U.S. had said they had to incorporate a minimum of 30% recycled paper fibre in all new paper. Here, we didn’t do that. This is an extremely important point to consider.
Where I get hung up, however, is on anything to do with reducing, producing or banning the product. Why do I say this? If it were a renewable natural resource, I understand that we could then say that we don’t need to ban it completely, because it’s a renewable resource. On the other hand, in the case of plastic, aluminum or any other inorganic substance, we can’t afford to do so, because the resource is limited. Nature has been producing oil for millions of years; we are not yet capable of producing oil. So we need to save that oil for essential things, important things — not for building single-use plastic. That’s where I see a disagreement between you, but I think it’s important to consider that.
To that end, and as a second question, why aren’t there programs where we pay according to our waste? We’ve talked about the need to educate people, but people are more sensitive when they have to pay or receive a deposit. Do we now have to say to people: “You’re consumers, you don’t recycle and you send everything to the landfill. The more waste you send for disposal, the more you’ll pay, because you’re contaminating more and producing more waste than more vulnerable people who don’t have the money to afford products that are not luxury products, but products with lots of plastic packaging?” Do you have any reaction to that?
Mr. Ménard: Yes, I have an opinion on everything.
I want to come back to your last point. I agree that we should pay for what we throw away, but up to a certain limit. Firstly, we should stop always blaming the consumer, making them responsible for everything and putting the burden of disposal on their shoulders. You see, consumers don’t always have a choice about what they buy, both in terms of the nature of the products they are offered — notably the type of plastic used — and the quantity. When it comes to over-packaging, I’ve never seen anyone ask the store, “I’d like to have an over-packaged box of cookies.” Quite the opposite; it’s the industry that’s selling us over-packaging, and increasingly so.
Fee-for-service also applies in very specific circumstances. It’s not applicable everywhere. Nor should we penalize people who are not served by reuse or recycling programs in their municipalities, and who will therefore be paying unduly. That’s why the industry should share in the responsibility. We’re talking here about the famous EPR, which is often applied elastically.
I think that the purchase price, as we discussed earlier, should reflect the cost of disposal or recycling. At that point, the consumer will perhaps make an informed choice, and the responsibility for managing the disposal of the product will not only fall on the consumer, but also on the industry. The more a polluting, non-recyclable product costs to dispose of, the more it should cost us. The cost of disposing of and recycling products should be internalized in their purchase price; that aspect should not be ignored, only to have the economic burden then placed on the consumer.
The Chair: Thank you.
[English]
Ms. Edmonds: There have been a lot of great points — too many to go into in a lot of detail — but I will just reiterate that we have relied on the tool of extended producer responsibility for 30 years, invested billions of dollars, and it has delivered us a 6.1% circularity rate. Lots of very smart people have tried to make the program better across different provinces and jurisdictions. As a brand owner who tries to comply with all of the patchwork of requirements that we have, harmonization has always been a desire for us because adding costs by not being harmonized doesn’t actually increase environmental output or value. Harmonization is always a good thing.
You mentioned additives, sometimes harmful, sometimes not. The types of additives that Jean-Luc is using make the plastics more circular. We have calculated some of our cartridges have gone around more than 10 times, so it’s more circular than the paper recycling that we do, which is often lauded as the best circular product we have.
Let’s think about what the circular economy is trying to do: It’s trying to fix a design problem, not a waste problem. The waste problem is only when we’re not being circular. So we’re trying to fix a design at the front end. The design piece is where our engineers need to think about this. My engineers come to me regularly and say, “Frances, do you have any customer anywhere who has ever said that they are willing to pay more for a higher percentage of recycled plastics in the products we sell?” Not one customer in Canada has done that, ever.
We forget to close that loop. We’re good at recycling. We have spent 30 years teaching kids. Every Canadian believes that if we just recycled more, everything would be good, but we don’t have an output for those recycled materials. We need to create a demand for those.
We’re also mixing here between durable goods and packaging. Companies like HP are eliminating 75% of single-use packaging in our product packaging. What do we replace it with? We replace it with fibre-based packaging, which comes from forests. Are we holding the companies who are packaging in paper accountable for their impacts on forests? Mr. Ménard talked about there always being impacts in different parts of the supply chain. We have to think about that comprehensively.
Recent non-profit results were that most of the companies that are responsible for deforestation don’t even have a single policy on deforestation, never mind not doing anything about it.
We need to encourage transparency in reporting in the companies we choose to do business with through the power of procurement — through the money we’re already spending. That 13% of GDP will change the marketplace in Canada.
We also forget about the embedded carbon in plastic. Senator, I know you mentioned that it is a non-renewable resource, but we forget about the embedded carbon. We talked a lot about transportation and moving things around — and Jean-Luc said that it’s expensive to do that — but what is the carbon footprint of virgin plastics versus the recycled plastics, even with all the shipping that we do with our cartridge plastic? I’m using that example because we have independently verified life-cycle assessments. It has a 46% lower carbon footprint than the virgin plastic we’re competing against. Therefore, using recycled plastics will help us meet our carbon as well as our sustainable development goals. We should be doing much more of that and creating a very positive demand for it and actively pursuing it when we buy anything, whether it’s in the packaging or in the durable goods we buy.
The simplest way to encourage the circular economy on the procurement side is to buy as a service. Jean-Luc touched on this a little bit. If the customer — be they a business or a consumer — never actually owned the good, and the good comes back to a vendor like HP, we’re in control of it. There is an incentive for us to design it better so it can be given a longer lifespan and eventually come back to us so we can properly take those resources in the end-of-life product and put them back into new products. We have a goal of 75% of doing that, but we cannot do that without customers coming along with us. Today, it is almost impossible to sell as a service, particularly to the federal government because they want to own things. It’s the way we’ve historically bought things.
So, 30 years of extended producer responsibility has delivered us a 6.1% circularity rate. We have not tried the sustainable or circular procurement route. We are running out of time to meet our sustainable development and climate goals. We have seven years to get a 40%-45% reduction in carbon. Why can’t we try something different? I don’t think banning plastics will get us further ahead. The people who are illegally exporting will continue to do that. The companies like HP that meet all the regulatory requirements will simply have added costs to prove we’re taking our plastics for recycling.
Senator McCallum: Thank you and welcome to the Senate.
I wanted to go back to the bill itself because I think we need to deal with it. I want to go to clause 3.
Clause 3 creates a list of materials that cannot be exported, but even with the creation of this list, we’re unable to do the action. There is really no way to monitor what we ship out in a comprehensive and consistent way. If we can do clause 3, we cannot do clause 2, which is making it an offence to export, because it’s not doable. Then we look at the amendment that was made, which states that the prohibition on exporting plastic waste must be applied in a way that respects legislation. So this application is not doable. When I look at that, this bill is not salvageable. It’s not going to accomplish anything.
I would like to hear your comments on that.
Mr. Lavergne: You are right. When you look at the number of products on the list, you need to be a chemist to check them all. It is very complicated to look at all these different products.
When you look at banning, reduction is an important element. Of course, we have to reduce, but we are growing populations. It’s nice to reduce, but there are more people on earth. What happens when you’re going through places like this? The notion of banning is that it eliminates something. It makes it go away. When it’s done for the right reason and if it’s well controlled, then — Frances was explaining about the cartridges and that we’re doing it specifically in a closed loop. It goes to a certain place because we centralized the dismantling of the product there. It’s really being recycled very well. I think the whole notion of banning is a harder thing to attack. Where I see our business being very successful is when you are able to see people saying, “I’m creating value because I will be buying this product.”
I’m an old guy. I’m 62 years old, so, sorry, but when you look at the younger generation today, they all want to do something better for the environment, so they are more in tune with this. You see what people are looking at.
I think there is a responsibility for us to promote this. In our case, for instance, the big challenge is that when you look at the virgin material right now, the producer market goes up and down in pricing. Today, the market of plastics is so down that recycled material becomes not exciting, so some people are going away from it. I think we could be doing some things from the virgin part to eliminate that, but at the end of the day, we’re doing this for the right reasons. We’re doing this because we’re reducing our carbon footprint.
By the way, we don’t take resources. Madam Chair talked about the fact that after a while there are not going to be any plastics. We believe there are enough end-of-life plastics that we could actually recycle and do the closed loop on these things.
I think the technology keeps improving. I agree: If we could do everything in Canada, why not? For us, we’re one company. Will there be more? Hopefully, there will be more. Today, I have an audience and customers who are willing to buy my plastics. I can tell you that a few years ago, they were not there. Still today, even though I say this, there are a lot who are still refracting. If we put energy into solutions for that, I think we’re better off. That’s my belief.
[Translation]
Mr. Ménard: Madam Senator, you’ve made an excellent point. It’s true that, in terms of application, these regulations can be complex.
We’re much more into the concept of eliminating plastics. I don’t know who at customs is going to inspect the containers, for example, to know what type of plastic will be authorized, because often it’s mixed plastics that we receive, so it becomes impossible to check.
There will also be new types of plastic. The devil is in the detail; by trying to make a bill too precise — as I presume you’re implying — it can become unworkable. The ideal solution would really be to ban export for disposal; there’s no environmental gain in disposing of a plastic abroad, except perhaps an economic one, but that’s not what we’re aiming for here at all. In our view, all types of plastic should be banned from export for disposal.
As for recycling, it would have to be demonstrated that the plastic in question would be recycled to standards similar to or higher than those we have in Canada. This would have to be demonstrated, and anything that could not be demonstrated would be banned from export.
Yes, as I keep saying, the devil is in the detail, and this often compromises the application of a fundamentally good regulation. This means that we can’t allow plastics to be exported for disposal, for example, to the U.S., because then the plastic may unfortunately end up in countries where environmental and social standards are virtually non-existent. We’re making ourselves responsible, if you like, for a situation we wouldn’t want to see here in Canada. Yes, you’re right about the publication of the regulations.
From a practical point of view, and Mr. Lavergne also said it well, it’s very difficult. As I said earlier, with the plastic bags that some municipalities are banning in Quebec — one city allows them, but the neighbouring city doesn’t — will we have a plastic bag police on the bridges between municipalities to see if anyone is carrying plastic bags? The idea is probably to have fewer details, but to have some uniformity in the application of the bylaw, so that everything is more verifiable and more effective.
[English]
Senator Arnot: This question is for Ms. Edmonds. You’ve been very helpful in talking to us about the plastic ecosystem, and you’ve talked about the tool of circular procurement, which could be helpful in this issue.
As a multinational corporation, how does HP address final disposal of plastic waste — waste that cannot be recycled any further?
Ms. Edmonds: The way to think about this is to have a formal design for the environment program. I said the circular economy is trying to address a design issue, so we challenge our engineers not to design products from the beginning that would have plastics and other materials that cannot be circular. We have a goal of 75% circularity by 2030. We’re working very hard on that. So it’s thinking at the front end and having a formal design for the environment program.
We work very closely with Jean-Luc to find outlets for plastics that are coming back today. Obviously, when we’re talking about user electronics, they’re often 10- or 15-year-old plastics that are coming back. We’re working with Jean-Luc on research projects on what we can do with those. Our goal is to have absolutely nothing go to landfill. The U.S. allows incineration for avoiding landfill. Of course, that gets into those nuances. We’ve measured our extended producer responsibility programs today, where success is diversion from landfill, but as our friend Mr. Ménard has pointed out, if you take it south of the border, then incineration is allowed in some parts of the country.
It all starts with design. I want to reiterate that if this bill were to pass, as Mr. Ménard pointed out, we would have to characterize sea containers full of mixed plastics. What is the cost of doing that? The people who are doing it illegally will keep doing it. The companies like HP, who are trying to do the right thing and put our own products back into our new products, are going to have to add cost to exporting to our sorting facility and then bringing it back. That cost cannot be recovered today because there’s no incentive in the marketplace. The federal government buys with the lowest price possible today. There’s no differentiation for sustainability performance or plastics excellence in what the federal government is buying.
When you buy on the lowest price, you’re driving this lowest sustainability performance. That’s the linkage. Don’t add costs to recycled materials, buy with recycled content in mind and create that demand for more investment in the recycling infrastructure. Hopefully, that answered the question.
Senator Arnot: Thank you.
[Translation]
Senator Gignac: I’m asking this question on behalf of my colleague Senator Anderson, who unfortunately couldn’t be here. Why don’t we have recycling stations in grocery stores across the country where we can bring back plastic bottles, such as fruit juices and sodas, a bit like in Europe, and Norway in particular? We’re not just talking about aluminum cans, but all plastic products. Why don’t we have that here in Canada?
Mr. Ménard: That’s a good question. Indeed, we’re experiencing it in Quebec with the deposit system and with retailers in the food sector. The structure of food retailer buildings wasn’t necessarily designed to store plastics or plastic, aluminum, metal or glass containers. This is why, in other provinces and elsewhere, the return points reserved for this type of collection are not in stores. They may be adjacent or in central locations, as in Ontario or New Brunswick, where there are deposit points. As for food retailers, they say they already have a lot of problems with container recovery, due to lack of staff, warehousing, nuisance problems, insects and so on. In a food store, we agree that this is not ideal. The idea is to have dedicated return areas.
Is the store a good place? I don’t think so. Is a drop-off centre reserved for returnable beverage containers, but also for other types of containers — For example, a glass jar and other plastic containers could be returned to a collection site, not necessarily for a deposit, but in Quebec, we see this a lot for glass. There are a hundred or so voluntary drop-off centres, mainly south of the river, which are victims of their own success. They’re very effective, because people understand that the glass container deposited there will be recycled and remelted, whereas when it’s placed in the recycling bin for selective collection, most of the time it ends up in the landfill as cover material for access roads to landfill sites. So it’s not optimal.
English speakers use the word downcycling. To me, this means disguised dumping of material that is highly recyclable. Yes, indeed, for collection points, the return is essential in order to have the purest and least contaminated material possible.
When it comes to products such as computers, ink cartridges or whatever, yes, we do have relatively efficient recovery chains, because we’re targeting a specific material.
As for deposits, it’s exactly the same thing. We need to rethink the whole thing, rather than recycling in a jumble, as is unfortunately the case here.
Senator Gignac: Mr. Lavergne, did I understand correctly from your opening remarks that you have a plant in Belgium? If so, could you tell us about the best business practices we could draw on in terms of sorting and collection? I understand that if sorting and collection are well done, it’s easier for you.
Mr. Lavergne: Yes, the Belgian plant came after the Montreal one. In fact, it was the Belgians who came looking for us.
We have four operational platforms. The one we’re talking about right now is used for e-waste, electronic waste, electronic scrap and household appliances. We developed a technology in Quebec and implemented version 2.0 in Belgium, which can now benefit from it. Of the 50 companies that submitted projects in Belgium, six were recruited and we submitted one of the two projects that were accepted. Europe is far more advanced than we are when it comes to recovery, reduction and recycling. Several countries have many structures in place. The reason we went there was to help them with the electronic platform, because nothing was happening in that area in the region. So, Belgium is the first of many.
What I’m seeing — as I told you, today I’m working at Dyson — is that there are international players, but there are others in Europe who are ready to get on board with the project. I continue to develop the product internationally, but the source comes from Quebec. We created this technology in Quebec, and we’re exporting it all over the world.
Senator Gignac: So, if I understand correctly, since we can make comments at the report stage after the bill is passed, I think we could draw inspiration from what’s happening in Europe with regard to plastic recycling. You seem to be saying that they’re much more advanced than we are.
Mr. Lavergne: They’re putting the pressure on. If you look at the automotive sector, by 2025, we’ll have to have recycled content. There are pressures, laws and regulations. In some cases, they’ve started to tax virgin resin. Industries that want to use virgin resin will have to pay more.
There’s a real pressure to reduce the carbon footprint. That’s why people say plastic is negative. We were talking earlier about plastics in the oceans. We have a plant in a rather special place in Haiti, and it’s where we built our first plant to collect plastics before they end up in the oceans. We can see that plastic, when recycled, works well.
In Europe, when they start putting such pressure on, we become a bigger player. That’s why we want to keep investing in places like this.
I’ve been doing this for almost 40 years. What I see today is that, in the end, the timing of what we do is really [Technical difficulties]. We need to give a little more justification and we need to promote that, as Ms. Edmonds was saying. It would be worth encouraging a successful brand owner to do that. At the same time, it will automatically help us boost what we do here. We’ll probably have competitors at some point. We’ll try to be leaders in this field, but from what I can see, we won’t be the only ones and we’ll see more and more of them. It’s a solution that works.
[English]
Senator McCallum: Under the Basel Convention, they’re looking at control of the movement of hazardous waste, and Canada is a party to that. Right now, it sounds like Canada is knowingly exporting hazardous waste because there’s no mechanism to monitor this movement. We don’t know the companies. When you look at plastic, you don’t know which company manufactured what.
I’m looking at clause 2 again. Would you say or agree that Canada is committing an offence under CEPA because we’re doing this?
The Chair: That’s a good question. Does someone want to answer that?
[Translation]
Mr. Ménard: Thank you for your question. I don’t know whether plastics are considered a toxic product by the Basel Convention; it’s a grey area. More and more countries, including Canada, want to ensure that materials like plastics become hazardous products for various reasons, in order to have more coercive regulations against them. As far as the Basel Convention is concerned, if Canada is a delinquent country, I believe that every other country on the planet is. Plastic travels from all countries to all countries for disposal and recycling. Often, we lose track of it, which is unfortunate. So we need to control this, and Canada should set an example.
I’d like to come back to what Mr. Lavergne was saying. He’s right to mention that when regulations exist, the industry will adjust. The voluntary approach has its limits, and it’s reached them when it comes to plastics exports. So federal regulation, if we’re talking about foreign exports, would be very welcome. As for the offenders, we need to have mechanisms to catch them and fine them enough to stop them doing this, so that the good industries can continue to operate as they do. It depends on regulation and enforcement; that’s fundamental.
You can have the best policies in the world, but if they’re not applied or enforceable, it doesn’t work. So we need to fine-tune the enforcement mechanisms and not put too many obstacles in our way to make enforcement possible.
The Chair: Mr. Lavergne, do you have a short answer?
Mr. Lavergne: My understanding is that the Basel Convention is already in place, and some European countries can no longer ship plastics outside their borders. In Canada, that’s also the case, but the U.S. hasn’t signed. The United States is still a source of exported products. It is said that, by 2025, there will be some solution. You can see that the Basel Convention is already doing a lot of the work.
The Chair: Thank you very much.
[English]
We have exhausted our questions. Thank you so much to our witnesses. Your contributions were very interesting and important, and they will be taken into consideration by the committee.
Now, senators, we will suspend for a few seconds in order to go in camera.
(The committee continued in camera.)