Isabelle Des Chênes: Creating a circular economy for plastics
Credit to Author: Hardip Johal| Date: Mon, 10 Feb 2020 02:00:11 +0000
It often seems like we live in a world divided. There are countless topics and issues where people of all stripes simply can’t come to a consensus. Plastic waste is not one of them. When it comes to eliminating plastic waste, we’re all on the same side whether we realize it or not.
Today in Canada, just more than 10 per cent of plastics entering the economy are recycled. Another 10 per cent provide secondary value as an energy source in a range of processes, from electricity generation to cement kiln fuel as a substitute for coal, to synthetic fuels where they can replace diesel fuel. Unfortunately, the remaining 80 per cent of all post-consumer plastics in Canada end up in landfills.
Virtually everyone agrees, including Canada’s chemistry and plastic sectors, that this is a visible and embarrassing economic and public policy failure.
The attention directed toward plastic waste provides a once-in-a-generation opportunity for governments, business and other stakeholders to take advantage of the public demand for better outcomes and put Canada’s recycling systems — for plastics and other post-consumer materials — on a sustainable footing.
The consequences of not doing so will be significant. Plastics play an incredibly vital role in the economy and our every day lives. Versatile, strong, lightweight and energy-efficient, plastics have been embraced by market after market where their economic and environmental benefits outperform alternatives. Shipping a pallet of pop in glass (which is 20 times heavier than plastic) instead of plastic bottles would increase GHG emissions substantially, and the transportation cost would increase — costs that the company will have to eat, or pass on to the consumer. Plastic wrap and packaging can extend the life of produce at your local grocery store from days to weeks. Without it, costs to businesses would rise and the amount of food waste would increase dramatically. If plastics were to vanish, the costs to business, consumers, and the environment would be severe. The means must be found to ensure society reaps the many benefits of plastic as a functional material, but without ending up in landfill or the environment.
At its roots, Canada’s poor performance in recycling is a result of inefficient markets due to a wide range of factors, with the three most important being: complex and confusing rules that differ by jurisdictions, which contribute to high rates of contamination; insufficient investment in modern sorting technologies; and a lack of harmonization and a policy framework that legislates recyclables as wastes, rather than raw materials.
As a prime example, the province of Ontario currently operates more than 250 different recycling systems, each with different rules. Citizens are confused as the expectations differ between their home, place of work, and when visiting other municipalities. While businesses pay for half of the cost of the provincial blue box programs, cash-strapped municipalities have faced other pressing priorities and investment in modern collection and sorting systems has lagged. Meanwhile, any enterprise that can source sufficient quantities of clean and sorted recycled material faces a challenging regulatory landscape where it is viewed more as a waste disposal operation than as a manufacturer. As a result, only about a quarter of plastic packaging entering the Ontario economy is actually recycled.
The province of British Columbia is an example of how we can do better. In B.C., those putting packaging materials into the environment pay for the costs of the recycling system. This takes the costs off the municipal accounts and let’s investment decisions for recycling stand on their own and not captive to other pressing demands on municipalities. Operated under industry leadership, Recycle BC has put in place a harmonized approach to recycling across the province. With a more efficient and scalable supply, investments in modern collection and sorting systems are in place and there is a demand for post-consumer materials for reprocessing. Today, nearly 75 per cent of all packaging materials entering B.C. are indeed recycled, including over 50 per cent of post-consumer plastics.
Some might be surprised to hear industry call for more regulation.
In this case, however, industry has been at the forefront and has successfully pressed the Ontario government to follow the lead of B.C. Ontario’s Blue Box Modernization initiative is underway and will be fully in place by 2025. With increased attention on plastics and broader recycling, Canada’s chemistry and plastics sectors are encouraging other provinces to also follow B.C.’s lead.
Industry has other roles as well. It must design more plastic products to be recyclable, and it must close the loop by reintroducing recovered plastic materials in the manufacturing process as substitutes for virgin plastics. Activities in all these areas are advancing quickly. Nova Chemicals has introduced a 100-per-cent recyclable plastic pouch. Dow is now marketing a plastic resin containing 70 per cent post-consumer plastic. Pyrowave, a Quebec-based company, has developed a patented technology that will allow polystyrene — a challenging and costly material to recycle — to be broken down to its base building blocks, which can be remanufactured into new polystyrene to meet industry and consumer needs. This development recently received more than $3 million in funding from Innovation, Science and Industry Canada as the Government of Canada looks to advance the transition to a circular economy for plastics.
Over the past two years, public concerns have deepened. Behind the scenes, the level of collaboration among all stakeholders to address the issue of plastic waste and the poor performance of Canada’s recycling systems has been impressive. Industry is fully invested, engaged and moving quickly. All of this gives hope that we are placing Canada on the right track to get plastics right.
This year’s Globe Business Summit kicks-off Feb. 10 at the Vancouver Convention Centre with delegates coming from across the globe to tackle important environmental and economic topics. Globe 2020 will place a strong emphasis on the ocean’s health, plastic waste and the development of a circular economy for plastics.
Isabelle Des Chênes is the executive vice-president of the Chemistry Industry Association of Canada.