Pollution Probe helps to launch the Canada Plastics Pact Roadmap to eliminate plastic waste

Today, Pollution Probe joined over 70 leading businesses and organizations to release the most comprehensive and ambitious action plan for reducing plastic waste in Canadian history through the Canada Plastics Pact (“CPP”). Roadmap to 2025: A shared action plan to build a circular economy for plastics packaging (“the Roadmap”) represents unprecedented cross-value chain collaboration, uniting key players behind a shared vision for a circular economy for plastics packaging in Canada and a targeted plan to drive tangible change by 2025.

Leading industry, NGO, and public sector organizations, including brands, retailers, recyclers, resin producers, non-profits, associations, governments and others – who together account for over a third of the plastics packaging on the market in Canada – were engaged during the development of the Roadmap.

Pollution Probe has been at the forefront of the movement to reduce, re-use and recycle since our inception in 1969. As part of the CPP, we’re committed to working in collaboration with other dedicated organizations to build a circular economy for plastics where we eliminate the plastics we don’t need and innovate so the plastics we do need can be reused, recycled and managed to maximize their value, extend their usable life and keep them out of the environment.

“Having been a driving force in the creation of Ontario’s Blue Box initiative as well as Canada’s oldest homegrown environmental charity, Pollution Probe has long advocated for the responsible use and disposal of plastics, which are valuable, but which can do tremendous damage to the environment in a linear take-make-waste system,” says Christopher Hilkene, CEO of Pollution Probe. “We’ve known for a long time that a circular economy for plastics is necessary, and we’re proud to be part of a collaboration driving the broad systems change needed to make it happen. The CPPs Roadmap is exactly the kind of action plan that we need, with a clear vision and long-term priorities as well as strategies for quick, high-impact change.”

The Roadmap presents a full picture of what is needed to aggressively advance action and what can be done next to achieve a circular economy for plastics packaging through three strategic priorities for 2025:

  1. Reduce, reuse, collect: Eliminate unnecessary and hard to recycle plastics. Drive innovation for reuse and refill models. Innovate to prevent waste from being created in the first place. Improve collection and recycling systems.
  2. Optimize the recycling system: Packaging design standards to improve recyclability. Investments in new infrastructure. Address supply and demand issues to incorporate recycled resins. Ensure government policy is in place and well-designed.
  3. Use data to improve the whole system: Create standard definitions and measurement practices. Drive investment in better real-time data and monitoring.

“Plastic packaging is a vital part of daily life, it is high-performing, lightweight, and low cost; but currently, over 85% of what we produce in Canada each year gets used once and ends up in landfills or the environment,” says George Roter, Managing Director of the CPP.  “By working together we can move faster and have more impact than any one organization could have had acting alone. The Roadmap is designed to comprehensively address this challenge, and sets forth both coordinated individual business actions and the system changes that are needed into a single agenda.”

The Roadmap will play a pivotal role in realizing a circular economy for plastics, and Pollution Probe looks forward to working alongside CPP Partners and others to make this much-needed transition happen.

About Pollution Probe

Pollution Probe is a national, not-for-profit, charitable organization which is improving the health and wellbeing of Canadians by advancing policy that achieves positive, tangible environmental change. It is a leader in building successful partnerships with industry and government to develop practical solutions for shared environmental challenges.

About the Canada Plastics Pact

The Canada Plastics Pact (CPP) is tackling plastic waste and pollution, as a multi-stakeholder, industry-led, cross-value chain collaboration platform. The CPP brings together Partners who are united behind a vision of creating a circular economy in Canada in which plastic waste is kept in the economy and out of the environment. Launched in January 2021, it unites 70+ businesses, government, non-governmental organizations and other key actors in the local plastics value chain behind clear actionable targets for 2025. The CPP is a member of the Ellen MacArthur Foundation’s Global Plastics Pact network. It operates as an independent initiative of The Natural Step Canada, a national charity with over 25 years experience advancing science, innovation and strategic leadership aimed at fostering a strong and inclusive economy that thrives within nature’s limits. Further information: www.plasticspact.ca | @CanadaPact

Media Contacts:

Richard Carlson – Director, Energy
rcarlson@pollutionprobe.org
Pollution Probe
416-926-1907 x 251
rcarlson@pollutionprobe.org

Manasvi Thakur, PR Manager
Bubblegum Canada
(437) 366-4207
manasvi@bubblegumcanada.com