Montreal — In reaction to the federal government’s announcement today about a move towards banning single-use plastics and rolling out Extended Producer Responsibility programs, Sarah King, Greenpeace Canada’s Head of Oceans & Plastics Campaign said:
“We welcome the move by the federal government to put the process in motion to ban single-use plastics. Ultimately Canada needs to move towards phasing out all non-essential plastics if we are going to truly reduce the awful plastic legacy we are leaving for future generations of all life on this planet. Every day until a ban comes into effect, millions of throwaway plastics are produced, consumed and disposed of, with massive costs to Canadians and wildlife. The federal government’s announcements marks the first step in an essential journey to break free from plastic.”
The federal government has noted some single-use plastics that would potentially be banned including straws, bags, and utensils. Greenpeace is calling for an ultimate phase-out of all non-essential plastics starting with those that are the most problematic and unnecessary including those that are often found in the environment, are regularly landfilled and have existing alternatives. Problematic and unnecessary plastics include but are not limited to PVC, bags, black plastic, oxo-degradable plastic, bottles, straws, utensils, expanded polystyrene, cups and lids, multilayered wrappers and take-out containers.
“We know the science and real-world evidence is clear that single-use plastics and waste is toxic, infiltrating food chains and even the air we breathe. Acting now to ban the most problematic and unnecessary plastics while holding corporations accountable for the waste problem they have created can set us on a better course. But the government must act as quickly as possible so this announcement isn’t a single-use election promise.”
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For more information please contact:
Marie-Christine Fiset, Head of Media, Greenpeace Canada,
[email protected]; +1 (514) 400-3256
Discussion
We need a large-scale shift away from our prevailing human mentality before we (i.e. the government) would agree to implement a plastics ban; and, more to the point, how do we collectively manage such a major shift when—regardless of ocean divers’ witness reports of the immense tangled messes—so much of it is not immediately observable (i.e. out of sight, out of mind)? It doesn’t surprise me, as general human mentality collectively allows us to, amongst other forms of blatant pollution, throw non-biodegradable garbage down a dark chute like we’re safely dispensing it into a black-hole singularity. And then there’s the astonishing short-sighted selfishness. I observed this last year when a local TV news reporter randomly asked a young urbanite man wearing sunglasses what he thought of government restrictions on disposable plastic straws. “It’s like we’re living in a nanny state, always telling me what I can’t do,” he recklessly retorted. Astonished by his shortsighted little-boy selfishness, I wondered whether he’d be the same sort of individual who’d likely have a sufficiently grand sense of entitlement—i.e. ‘Like, don’t tell me what I can’t waste or do, dude!’—to permit himself to now, say, deliberately dump a whole box of unused straws into the Georgia Strait, just to stick it to the authorities who’d dare tell him that enough is enough with our gratuitous massive dumps of plastics into our oceans (which are of course unable to defend themselves against such guys seemingly asserting self-granted sovereignty over the natural environment), so he could figuratively middle-finger any new government rules with a closing, ‘There! How d’ya like that, pal!’ No wonder so much gratuitous plastic waste eventually finds its way into our life-filled oceans, where there are few, if any, caring souls to see it.