Environment Minister Steven Guilbeault's department issued a deadline on Wednesday for grocers to provide their feedback on proposed restrictions regarding single-use plastics, such as meat wrapping and fruit bags. .According to Blacklock’s Reporter, they have until the end of the month to submit their comments..Approximately $205 million will be the cost to consumers due to the current ban on plastic six-pack rings and other goods, according to official estimates..“A significant amount of plastic food packaging is used only once and then ends up in landfills,” said Guilbeault. .Guilbeault did not give an estimate of how much the new regulations would cost..The Department of Environment has announced that it plans to draft regulations by the end of 2023 to reduce the usage of single-use meat wrapping and produce bags..“There is a need to do business differently,” it wrote in a statement. .“That is why the Government of Canada is taking action to reduce plastic pollution.”.In a notice Development of a Pollution Prevention Planning Notice for Primary Food Plastic Packaging, the department proposed to “require Canada’s largest grocery retailers to prepare and implement a pollution prevention plan to meet targets to reduce, reuse and redesign primary food plastic packaging including recycling content targets.”.Regulations targeted “plastic packaging that comes into direct contact with food,” it said. .The proposal was first introduced in a 2020 discussion paper A Proposed Integrated Management Approach to Plastic Products to Prevent Waste and Pollution. This paper raised questions about using several plastic items, including meat wrapping, fruit and vegetable bags, water bottles, cup lids, and disposable wipes..More information was required to determine “whether management action is needed and which measures should be considered,” said the discussion paper..By Dec. 31, a separate regulatory ban will be implemented on six blacklisted plastic products. .These items include polystyrene food containers, single-use cutlery, straws, grocery bags and six-pack rings. .The department mentioned in a notice from 2021 that enforcing this ban will come with significant costs..“The proposed regulations are expected to result in $205 million in costs in the first year of full policy stringency, 2024,” said a Regulatory Impact Analysis Statement. .“Some consumers may feel the burden of these costs more than others.”.According to the staff, there are substitutes available for plastic checkout bags such as paper bags, which cost eight cents each, more expensive than the current plastic bags, which cost three cents each. .Currently, consumers use approximately 15.6 billion checkout bags every year..Plastic forks that cost four cents each could be replaced with wooden cutlery that costs nine cents. .Instead of using penny straws, switch to paper straws that cost three cents each..Also, replace plastic six-pack rings, which cost three cents each, with cardboard alternatives that cost 34 cents..Staff said “while the unit price of any one single substitute is relatively small” the overall expense multiplied by billions of substitute items was costly. .“The total substitution costs per year for the proposed regulations are expected to be significant given these substitutes would replace around 30 billion single-use plastic items annually or around 800 single-use plastic items per Canadian,” said Impact Analysis.
