Canada to push ‘plastics charter’ at G7 gathering
Biggest offenders in Asian countries
OTTAWA • Environment Minister Catherine Mc-Kenna says the plastics char-ter she is negotiating with other G7 nations ahead of next month's leaders' sum. mit in Quebec could be billed as a Paris-type ageement for ocean garbage. McKenna said in an inter-view that the talks are tough, but going well — and she's confident Prime Minister Justin Trudeau will have something solid to present to other leaders in Charlevoix, Que. in June. The plastics charter is to be a centrepiece element of the summit, where the environment is one of the themes Trudeau chose for Canada's turn as the presi-dency of the 07. McKenna said the char- ter will focus on a high-level policy approach that will include targets for reducing the amount of garbage in the oceans and call for domestic plans to meet those targets. Different studies suggest anywhere from six million tonnes to 10 million tonnes of plastic garbage ends up in the ocean each year. Mom than half of it comes from a small number of countries, mainly in Asia, where gar-bage collection is lacklustre at best. She said even if a lot of the garbage Canadians indi-vidually produce isn't whatk clogging the ocean. Canada has a role to play in develop-ing products that are easier to recycle and Canadians can do more to reduce the amount of single-use plastics in their lives Tim Gray, executive dir-ector of Environmental De-fence, says it is ridiculous to walk into a grocery store and see a Styrofoam tray with one or two bell peppers wrapped tightly in plastic shrink wrap. He says com-panies argue consumers want the convenience but he said he fulls it highly unlike-ly customers are clamouring for plastic wrap on all their vegetables. He noted Canada doesn't yet My e a domestic plan for plastics. McKenna launched public consultations In April on such a plan, but would not confirm if Canada will announce any national poll• des before the G7. In addition to setting targets for reducing plastic waste, McKenna said the charter will pub the G7 to work with industry to de-velop less harmful products and help developing nations create better waste disposal systems to keep plastics from the water. McKenna said if the G7 can agree on a charter, the goal then will be to take it next to the G20. Gray said the idea of a plastics charter as a sort of Paris agreement for plastics isan interesting one but only if there is actual work to fol-low through on it. We don't want to see situ-ations where we have more signing of more Paris-like agreements, but not the re-quired action at the domes-tic level to make it actually achievable* The Paris agreement on climate change committed countries to setting national targets to cut emissionswith an aim to keeping global warming to below 2 degrees Celsius compared with pre-industrial temperatures. Getting some of the G7 on board the plastics band-wagon won't be hard, as the United Kingdom, Italy and France already have started on policies to ban certain plastic products or work to-wards reducing their use. Japan is already one of the world's most proficient re-cyders, reporting in 2014 that 83 per cent of plastic was recycled or reused. Germany, the United States and Canada have no national policies on plastics and are among the biggest per capita users of plastics. Canadians produce an estimated 729 kilograms of garbage per person each year and recycle less than one third of it. McKenna would not say if any particular countries were reluctant to sign on to a plastics charter orwhether therewereanybighurdlesto getting their co-operation.