Canada wants feedback on plastic food packaging pollution prevention

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The Government of Canada wants to implement a pollution prevention (P2) plan for plastic food packaging and is asking industry stakeholders, including grocery retailers and food and beverage manufacturers, to comment on the plan.

Interested parties can provide comments until August 30, 2023 via email or by mail, which the government says will be considered in helping to develop the P2 notice, expected to be published later this year.

The P2 Notice will also include targets to increase the sale of products within reuse-refill systems, concentrated products, and products free of plastic packaging. Together, the government says the P2 Notice and the proposed Recycled Content and Labelling for Plastic Products Regulations, which are targeted for publication before the end of 2023, would reduce the overall threat of harm posed by plastic items in the environment.

• The government says it’s looking for ideas for areas:
• Objectives and factors to consider to address primary food plastic packaging waste;
• Supply chain considerations and other barriers to achieving objectives;
• Reporting and measuring success;
• Data and insights from food retailers on the plastic footprint.

Grocery retailers and food and beverage suppliers have already taken significant steps towards plastic reduction. Early in 2021, more than 70 retailers, food and beverage manufacturers and industry associations formed the Canada Plastics Pact (CPP), an action plan to tackle plastic packaging. At the time CPP noted that plastic is a vital part of daily life but more than 85 per cent of plastic packaging produced in Canada gets used once and ends up in landfills or the environment. And spurred on by the single-use plastics prohibition regulations that came into force in June, grocers have eliminated single-use plastic shopping bags in their stores.

Interested stakeholders can send comments via email to [email protected] or by mail to Tracey Spack, Plastics Regulatory Affairs Division, Environment and Climate Change Canada, 351 Saint-Joseph Boulevard, Gatineau QC  K1A 0H3.