Canada bans single-use plastic grocery bags, other items

Canada on June 20 announced final regulations banning select single-use plastic manufactured items, including checkout bags, cutlery, certain foodservice ware, ring carriers, stir sticks, and most straws.

Depending on the product, the regulations will be enforced  between six months and three and a half years following June 20 this year, according to a USDA report.

In line with the federal government’s Zero Plastic Waste Agenda, Environment and Climate Change Canada announced final Single-use Plastics Prohibition Regulations on June 20.

The regulation was initially published in December 2021, when proposed rules were subject to public consultations.

The government of Canada said the six categories of single-use-plastics subject to the regulations represented an estimated 150,000 metric tons sold in 2019,  or an estimated 3% of the total plastic wase generated in Canada that year.

The regulations said grocery bags or shopping bags are typically  made from high- or low-density polyethylene film. “Single use plastic checkout bags have low recycling rates (estimated at less than 15%) despite being accepted in several recycling programs across Canada and are known to hamper recycling systems by becoming caught up in sorting and processing machinery,” the regulations said.

In addition, the regulations said retail single-use plastic retail bags are some of the most common forms of plastic litter in the natural environment and checkout bags have been identified by experts as posing a threat of entanglement, ingestion and habitat disruption for marine wildlife.

The regulations are expected in a decrease of around 22,000 metric tons in plastic pollution over ten years,  the government of Canada said. That represents around 5% of the total plastic pollution generated each year.

 The regulations are expected to result in $2 billion in present value costs over the analytical period, stemming mainly from substitution costs, according to the government of Canada. “While these costs are significant in aggregate, they will be widely dispersed across Canadian consumers (around $5 per capita per year),” the regulations said.

The ban on the manufacture of the six categories of single-use plastics are also expected to result in $176 million in costs to Canadian manufacturers over the analytical period, according to a cost-benefit analysis in the regulations.