Canada to Ban Single Use Plastics by 2023

Date: June 30, 2022

Source: News Room

Canada has recently passed legislation that will relatively abruptly remove single use plastics from circulation. The aim of the law is to fully remove single use plastics from circulation and export by the end of 2025, however sales within the country will be halted by 2023.

This legislation comes at a time of increasing pressure from voters, stakeholders, and recycling firms across the globe to phase out resins that are either not recyclable with current manufacturing processes or not profitable enough to be recycled at scale. Currently, only 10 percent of all plastics get recycled worldwide, with about 29,000 tons of plastic from Canada alone ending up as pollution and the rest slowly degrading in landfills over decades.

The ban will take effect in stages, with import and manufacturing of single use plastics, including plastic bags and Styrofoam food containers, being banned first and the export of single use plastics being banned later. No state in the US has adopted a policy as aggressive as this one so it will be interesting to watch how it affects the North American plastics and recycling industries by 2025.

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