Front Burner - Canada vs. Big Plastic: A legal fight about more than straws

Episode Date: March 10, 2023

This week, a federal court judge in Toronto heard arguments from a plastics lobby group and the federal government, in a challenge to a ban on single-use plastics like bags, straws and stir sticks that was introduced last year. On today’s episode, Lisa Erdle, microplastics researcher and the director of science and innovation at the U.S.-based 5 Gyres Institute, describes what’s at stake in the court hearing, the impact of plastics in the environment and what can be done to improve the situation. For transcripts of this series, please visit: https://www.cbc.ca/radio/frontburner/transcripts

In the Dragon's Den, a simple pitch can lead to a life-changing connection. Watch new episodes of Dragon's Den free on CBC Gem. Brought to you in part by National Angel Capital Organization, empowering Canada's entrepreneurs through angel investment and industry connections. This is a CBC Podcast. Hi, I'm Alex Bonetta, in for Jamie Poisson. I just want to say one word to you. Just one word.

Yes, sir. Are you listening? Yes, I am. Plastics. Exactly. How do you mean? There's a great future in plastics. Think about it. Will you think about it?

Yes, I will. In this classic scene from the 1967 film The Graduate, plastic gets depicted as cold, corporate, soulless. Basically everything the counterculture of that era is raging against. But you know, flash forward to today and that now seems pretty prescient. Because plastic is everywhere. It's a major economic driver. It's in our medical equipment. It's in our cars, our homes. Practically everything we buy is wrapped in it. But it's also choking our oceans

at unprecedented levels. It's killing wildlife and it's building up in the fish we eat and even inside our own bodies. To address some of that, in 2022, Canada rolled out a ban on single-use plastics. No more use it and lose it. It's time to turn off the tap on single-use plastic pollution. The federal ban on single-use plastics will include bags and takeout boxes, as well as straws, cutlery, stir sticks, and those six-pack rings that hold cans and bottles. This decision is supported by science. It will keep our environment clean and wildlife healthy. As you can probably guess, not everyone was pleased with this ban. And this week in federal court, in a trial being called one of Canada's largest environmental cases ever,

a plastics industry group is fighting to overturn it. A federal judge is hearing arguments from governments, environmental groups and plastic companies. Lawyers for Imperial Oil, Dow Chemical, and others say they don't oppose reducing pollution, just the way the government is going about doing it. To talk about that case, and about the state of plastic pollution, today I'm joined by Lisa Erdl. Lisa is a microplastics researcher and the Director of Science and Innovation at the U.S.-based Five Gyres Institute. And she's here with me now.

Hi, Lisa. Thanks for being here. Thanks for inviting me on the show. All right. So we'll talk about the court case in a minute. But first, I want to start with how pervasive plastic is. Are we actually relying more on it now or does it just feel that way? rise in plastic production and plastic is all around us. It's in habitats and wildlife around the world. It's in the food we eat, the water we drink, and it's in our bodies. It's truly a global contaminant. Between 2016 and 2040, nearly a billion tons of plastic will be discarded into the environment. And so there's growing consensus now on the urgency of cutting carbon emissions, but plastic pollution, it doesn't get as much ink.

I mean, why should we care more about plastics? Carbon emission control is essential and it is going to a carbon-free future. But a plastic problem is a carbon problem and we know that there are many negative effects of plastic pollution in the environment. It causes negative effects to animals when they ingest it. These plastics can contain toxic chemicals that can also be driving these negative effects. And we should care about it

because it's a growing problem. We know that there is more plastic pollution in the environment than ever. And with a rise in production, this is expected to continue growing. So we hear sometimes that oil companies are looking to plastics more in response to international moves to reduce carbon emissions. But is this actually true? Are they shifting toward plastic production? Plastic production is a growing part of petrochemicals portfolios. The amount of plastic that is being produced is on the rise at the same time that oil companies are receiving more international pressure to cut productions for other types of fossil fuels, like for transportation. For a long time, plastics has been plan B for the petrochemical industry,

but it's looking more and more like it's plan A. There's a strong link between petrochemicals and plastic. Almost all of plastic that's produced is derived from petrochemicals. So it's a shift that the petrochemical industry has been trying to push for a long time, this increase in rise of plastic production. And this increase in plastic is causing an increase of other types of fossil fuel emissions to the environment. There's a lot of emissions in transport and production and also some emissions from plastic as it starts to degrade over time. Okay, so let's go back to the ocean. Your organization released a study this week with some very unnerving data about plastic pollution in the ocean. What did you discover?

This week, we published a study with a 40-year time trend, and we see that today there's over 170 trillion pieces of plastic in the world's oceans. This is orders of magnitude higher than what we previously estimated. And in the last 15 years, we see a rapid rise of plastic in the world's oceans. We have over 12,000 sampling sites from around the world. It's a collaborative project among many scientists pulling together data so we can start to piece together the story of what's happening in the oceans. And what we see is some steady state, maybe even some slight declines in response to binding and enforceable treaties limiting the emissions of plastic to the environment. But in the last 15 years, the plastic in the oceans has skyrocketed. Okay, 171 trillion plastic particles. It sounds

like a lot, but let's put that in context because it's hard for we mortals to grasp a number with like 15 zeros. I know I can't. So this is apparently 2.3 million tons of plastic in the ocean. Okay, so I did some quick, you know, back of an envelope math here, and that's like almost a million standard sized SUVs. And I'm trying to imagine almost a million SUVs lined up. And if you did that, it would practically span from Montreal to Vancouver. According to your paper, this is how much plastic there is in the ocean. What sort of orders of magnitude, what images do you sort of get in your mind when you look and you think about this volume? It's a staggering number, 171 trillion pieces of plastic.

And most of these plastics are very small. They're these microplastics less than five millimeters in size. Many of them you can't even see with the naked eye. But when they're pooled together, the mass is absolutely staggering. You know, a million SUVs or rhinoceroses. It starts to put into context how much is actually out there. But a lot of it is these small microplastics. It's really a smog in the world's oceans.

I want to ask you about something in your study, about what happened after year 2000. I was wondering if there's a methodological quirk that explains this, but it seems like there was a bit of a decline in the volume of plastic put into the ocean and then it shot up again. Can you talk to me about the time lapse, like the trend? Yeah. Some of those declines might have been in response to global policy measures, in response to global policy measures, or could be an artifact of how hard it is to study the world's oceans. But we do see a couple dips over time. And it could be due to these enforceable global policy measures, like Marpol, which limits the release of plastic into the world's oceans. These were policies that had teeth.

They were enforceable. But over the last decade or so, there's mostly been voluntary policy measures, which really does not seem to be effective with the rapid rise we see of plastic in the world's oceans and in habitats around the world. It's a similar trend. We see that there are plastics in rivers and lakes and in habitats around the world. It's a similar trend. We see that there are plastics in rivers and lakes, in agricultural areas, hundreds of species of wildlife. It's truly around the world, and oceans are downstream,

but it's not the only part of the world that's contaminated. All right, now I want to talk to you about policy measures, but just before getting there, I've just read about this new disease called plasticosis in seabirds, which sounds awful. Birds die from plastic all the time. But what's new about this specific discovery? Plasticosis was a new discovery just out this week where seabirds were found to have this new disease, plasticosis, where there's damage to the digestive tract that causes these many health concerns. We've known for years that ingested plastic can lead to mortality, can change feeding behavior because animals get this false sense of satiation, being full. But this is a new disease that was discovered

that it's so common that seabirds are eating plastic and this plastic is harming the digestive tracts that it warrants a new disease. That's horrible. So these birds feel full, but they're actually dying of starvation. These birds can feel full, but die of starvation can feed plastic to their chicks and can also cause their offspring to die of starvation. And beyond that, beyond just the mortality caused by plastic, it can lead to chemical accumulation and other negative effects, other chronic effects like plasticosis. Gem, brought to you in part by National Angel Capital Organization, empowering Canada's entrepreneurs through angel investment and industry connections. Hi, it's Ramit Sethi here. You may have seen my money show on Netflix.

I've been talking about money for 20 years. I've talked to millions of people and I have some startling numbers to share with you. Did you know that of the people I speak to, 50% of them do not know their own household income. That's not a typo, 50%. That's because money is confusing. In my new book and podcast, Money for Couples, I help you and your partner create a financial vision together. To listen to this podcast, just search for Money for Couples. Okay, so the reason we're talking about plastic today is because this week, the plastics lobby and the federal government

are in court fighting over Canada's single-use plastic ban. First of all, what does this ban cover? This ban covers single-use plastics that we know are ending up in landfill and ending up in the environment. These are single-use plastic items like straws and forks and bags. And the federal ban would effectively ban these items

from across Canada. Okay. So some people, including disability activists, have been critical of the ban. They say some people need twisty straws. And let's be honest, there are not a lot of fans out there of paper straws. But, you know, is it worth it? I mean, as a plastic pollution expert, can you tell us whether these bans actually make a quantifiable difference to the environment? single-use plastics. We know that in the full suite of solutions, bans can be effective. Sometimes material redesign is important and improved waste management solutions often will span these different things. But for single-use plastics, these food items that are the number one discarded type of plastic worldwide and ending up in landfills, ending up in the environment, bans can be an effective tool toills, ending up in the environment. Bans can be an effective tool to prevent these items from reaching the environment, from limiting their use. And there can be exceptions for things like people with disabilities or material redesign

that's using different types of polymers so they can still have the same function. types of polymers so they can still have the same function. But this ban would effectively eliminate some of these hard to recycle, hard to handle for waste management items that have such short lifespans and are often used once and thrown away. Okay, so let's talk about the legal arguments because the plastic industry group is making different arguments against the ban saying it's based on politics, not science, so let's talk about the legal arguments. The plastic industry group is making different arguments against the ban, saying it's based on politics, not science, that it's unconstitutional. According to a legal brief the plastics industry filed in court, the federal government's plan has fatal flaws.

It says it's not the federal government's place to regulate plastics. It's the provinces and territories. And they also argue that the government was not justified when it listed plastics as toxic because they say the Canadian Environmental Protection Act doesn't allow it. So let's unpack those. What do you say to those arguments? Yeah, well, I do think the federal government does have jurisdiction to regulate these because they have the ability to regulate substances that are toxic, persistent, bioaccumulative, and human-made. And we know that a substance is toxic if it enters the environment and can have immediate or long-term harmful effects on the environment or biological diversity.

And we know that for many of these single-use plastic items, that that is true. It causes danger to the environment. It can harm wildlife. We have lots of evidence that these plastics are ending up in wildlife and they can cause damage and cause harm. So really, the federal government does have jurisdiction to regulate these types of items. Okay, so we invited plastics companies, including Dow Chemical, Imperial Oil, Nova Chemicals, the Responsible Plastic Use Coalition, to comment, and they either didn't or didn't respond. But in the court documents, they argue that this ban, in their opinion, unfairly labels plastic products as toxic. They say things like medical devices, products that deliver clean drinking water, should not be labeled that way.

So, Lisa, what's the happy medium here? How do we balance the need for plastic in certain products with moves that actually protect our oceans? There are, of course, many useful applications of plastic, like you just mentioned, like medical uses. It also makes airplanes lighter and cars lighter, so we use less fossil fuels in transportation. But we do know that many of these items are having effects and causing effects on the environment. And there's a lot of nuance in which items should be regulated under this type of program, like single-use plastics. There's not a move to eliminate plastics completely from our everyday lives. We use it in so many different sectors of society. and food packaging that we know are causing harm are the most discarded and require solutions to

prevent them from contaminating habitats and just piling up in landfill. So let's talk about the policy stakes from this specific case. I mean, what difference does it make if the federal government wins or loses? What different outcomes could we potentially see? If the federal government wins, they then have the ability to ban and manage plastics in a meaningful way. We're right on the cusp of a global treaty on plastic pollution. Canada will be joining other nations in May in Paris for an international negotiation committee on a global treaty of plastic pollution. This would allow Canada to go to the negotiations showing that they are implementing solutions at the national level that can then ripple out throughout the world. throughout the world. It would be a meaningful action from Canada to follow through on this ban and would add to the types of commitments that are going to be required by countries around the world to control plastics.

And before we get to the U.N. process, you know the old saying, think locally, act globally. I want to talk about things people can do in their own lives. What can we as citizens do? What can we encourage elected officials to do? Yes. Can you walk me through a few things that would make a difference in everyday human practice? This federal ban is really meaningful for single-use food packaging. It would ban these hard-to-recycle common items. But plastics are a complex suite of contaminants. We know that there are lots of different polymers, different additives, different uses of society. And there are many sources of plastic getting to our environment

that have effective solutions that we already know about. For example, our clothing sheds microfibers. We know that these microfibers contaminate habitats, but filters added to washing machines can capture up to 90% of those fibers in every load of laundry. can capture up to 90% of those fibers in every load of laundry. There's a bill in Ontario currently that would require all new washing machines just to have these filters automatically built in. They're capturing these fibers before they reach the environment and can cause harm. Another major source of microplastics in the environment,

especially in freshwater ecosystems near cities, are the particles that shed from tires. And we know that capture devices and green infrastructure, things like rain gardens, can capture these particles before they reach aquatic habitats and can be ingested by fish and wildlife and have these toxic effects. by fish and wildlife and have these toxic effects. So there are solutions both that can be implemented by cities in terms of infrastructure or solutions that can really be implemented by consumers that are addressing more than just single-use plastics. And plastics are so pervasive. It's more than just these food items. But we need to think big about all the sources of plastic to our environment and ways to control it. And we do have these solutions that exist, which is very exciting. And I think individuals should reach out to their legislators about these various solutions that can be implemented, both at a local and then federal, global level.

So you alluded to the United Nations. There was just an agreement last weekend on a new can be implemented both at a local and then federal, global level. So you alluded to the United Nations. There was just an agreement last weekend on the new UN High Seas Biodiversity Protection Treaty. But as you alluded to earlier, your organization is advocating for a UN global treaty, specifically on plastic pollution, which has been under negotiation for a few months. What would a UN treaty actually achieve? What difference does this make? A UN treaty would look at the full life cycle of plastic. We know that many of these other environmental international treaties

are targeting biodiversity or targeting carbon. But we need to focus on plastics specifically. These other treaties do not look at plastics over their full life cycle and would look at the effects of plastic over its full life cycle from extraction, from the production of plastics through to use and end of life and would implement measures to reduce the harm over this full life cycle of plastics. So just one final question. I want to look forward at the possibility of not only improving the future trend, but actually correcting past damages. Is there any chance of cleaning up this spectacular disaster that you've written about? Is there any way of going backwards and cleaning up the oceans?

We found over 170 trillion pieces of microplastics in the oceans. These are particles that are so small that once they're in the environment, they're not easily cleaned up. The solutions are upstream. They're in source reduction. They're in capture before these particles reach the environment. For some of the big stuff, cleanups can be effective, removing plastic items like single-use plastics that may be banned in Canada and collecting them

before they fragment into smaller and smaller microplastics over time. Because these small particles, they're nearly impossible to clean up. Or where you can clean them up, there's a lot of other negative externalities, these costs of bycatching other wildlife or being very, very expensive to try to clean up and mitigate. So it's like trying to mop up the floor before turning off the tap. We need to turn off the tap. We need to turn off the tap rather than focus on downstream cleanup solutions because they haven't really been effective to date. But for the larger stuff, it can be effective to remove them before they break down.

Lisa, thank you very much. Thank you. That's all for today. FrontBurner was produced this week by Lauren Donnelly, Shannon Higgins, Rafferty Baker, Derek Vanderwyk, Matt Amah, Jody Martinson, and Simi Bassi. Our sound design was by Sam McNulty. Our intern

is Abby Hughes. Our music is by Joseph Chavison. Our executive producer is Nick McCabe-Locos. And our hosts this week were Jamie Poisson and me, Alex Panetta. Thank you for listening to FrontBurner. For more CBC Podcasts, go to cbc.ca slash podcasts.