The federal government has a perfect record on environmental court challenges — it’s batting a thousand after a federal judge ruled its ban on single use plastics is out of bounds.According to Justice Angela Furlanetto, Environment Minister Steven Guilbeault’s assertion that all plastic products are toxic is “both unreasonable and unconstitutional.”The suit was originally filed by the Alberta government in fall of last year and joined by the government of Saskatchewan in March..Both provinces asserted that Ottawa had overstepped its jurisdictional authority when it added manufactured plastic items such as straws, stir sticks and cutlery to its list of toxic substances — alongside lead, arsenic, mercury and asbestos — in 2021.Instead, they argued it to be a waste management issue, which is regulated at the provincial level. Opposition to the move was initially raised by former premier Jason Kenney..”Banning plastic waste exports won’t solve the world’s plastic trash woes.”Environment Minister Steven Guilbeault.The feds, under Steven Guilbeault, argued the ban is necessary to cut plastic pollution generally and specifically in waterways. That said, Canada has a limited recycling industry and in 2022 exported 183 million kilograms of plastic waste in 2022 — which was up 30% in the past four years.In October, a Canadian Press report found that brands of Canadian yogurt tubs had wound up at UNESCO sites like Angkor Watt in Myanmar. The trash in some small villages is so tall it reaches the top of single storey houses.And yet Guilbeault — for all his posturing back home — refuses to join more than 100 countries in banning the export of plastic waste entirely. And in fact, he has publicly stated the “banning plastic waste exports won’t solve the world’s plastic trash woes.”.In an interview with the National Observer, Guilbeault went as far as to defend the practice of offloading waste onto some of the world’s poorest countries including Haiti. In 2019 Philippine president Rodrigo Duterte threatened war over tonnes of what he called “rotting” garbage and filed a claim for violating international law under the so-called Basel Convention, which Canada is not party to.And has no intentional of joining. Instead Guilbeault told the publication reducing plastic waste requires creating a circular economy for its recycling and reuse and banning exports would harm that."If we want to have a circular economy which would include plastic, it doesn't make a lot of sense to put trade barriers or physical barriers to the movement of this good," he said. "But I do think we need to do a better job when it comes to ensuring that what is being shipped around is plastics that can be recycled."It’s not immediately clear if Thursday’s ruling means Canadians will get their single use shopping bags — most of which have been banned by major retail outlets — of plastic forks back any time soon.
