In efforts to reduce 3 million tons of plastic waste produced by Canada every year, the Canadian government recently declared that they plan on banning harmful single-use plastics as early as 2021!
Canada’s usage of single-use plastic is at a staggering 15 billion plastic bags yearly and 57 million plastic straws daily. According to the Canadian government, only 10% of the plastic waste in the country is recycled. In comparison, 32% of plastic packaging waste in Australia was recycled in the last financial year, but there is still room for improvement!
With the plastic ban announcement, Canada has joined the global movement to ban single-use plastics such as bags and straws! Canadian Prime Minister, Justin Trudeau said in a statement that Canadians know what harm plastic pollution causes and are tired of seeing plastic waste all over the place. He also added, “we owe it to our kids to keep the environment clean and safe for generations to come.”
Closer to home, South Australia has also taken the first step earlier this year by bringing up the topic of banning single-use plastics! Mr Speirs, environment minister of SA published a paper titled “Turning the tide on single-use plastic products”, in which he shared his hopes to ban these products the same way single-use plastic bags were banned at checkouts across South Australia in 2009. Switching to reusable shopping bags led to 400 million plastic bags being removed from distribution throughout the state.
Here at Australian Green Clean we always encourage our clients and staff to implement reusable or compostable products at their events or building sites, however we understand that some plastics just can’t be avoided. In these cases it is so important to ensure that plastics are being recycled. We offer a range of diversion from landfill options for plastic recycling to our clients across Australia.