B.C. bans plastic and styrofoam takeout containers
Episode Stats
Words per minute
182.32881
Summary
In British Columbia, the government has banned plastic and Styrofoam takeout containers. What does that mean for the environment? Is this a good or bad thing? And what are the alternatives to plastics that are more environmentally friendly? In this episode, we talk about the pros and cons of the plastics ban, and why it might not be as bad as it sounds.
Transcript
00:00:00.000
In British Columbia, a furthering of what's become the norm now in politics, which is the
00:00:14.100
war on plastic. Now, I spoke about this a few weeks back on this show, and we talked about
00:00:18.860
why the government was just so scientifically wrong to view plastic as a toxin, but that is
00:00:24.360
effectively what it's committed to doing at the federal level. The Supreme Court will ultimately
00:00:28.860
get to weigh in on whether the government's plastics ban is appropriate, but British Columbia
00:00:34.120
has decided to go out on its own here and ban plastic and styrofoam takeout containers.
00:00:40.640
So if you want to go and pick up whatever you like from takeout in British Columbia, you
00:00:45.800
want to go and get something from the Cactus Club, they cannot give it to you in a styrofoam
00:00:50.940
or plastic container. So what does that leave you? What does that leave you? It'll leave
00:00:55.460
you paper, I guess. So if you order paper, you're going to hopefully not have soup that
00:01:00.460
will just melt through it before you get home. There are some very expensive alternatives
00:01:04.380
that have come out that are made through biodegradable materials. But even then, we're talking about
00:01:08.920
a war on plastics here. And what do people do with a lot of these containers? They reuse
00:01:13.560
them, but that's no longer allowed. Joining me on the line now is our good friend, Catherine
00:01:19.980
Swift. Catherine, good to have you on the show. Thanks for coming on today. Nice to see you
00:01:24.020
as always, Andrew. So we've talked on the show in the past. Actually, you and I have spoken
00:01:28.720
about it, about why they're just so profoundly wrong, these mandates. But there is a huge
00:01:34.180
cost aspect to this as well, because the plastic alternatives are either ineffective when you
00:01:39.520
look at paper-based products, or they're incredibly expensive, like some of these more
00:01:44.220
environmentally friendly ones. And for small businesses, especially in the food service
00:01:48.220
industry, this is not insignificant. Oh, and it's also, excuse me, it's also inflationary,
00:01:54.920
obviously, because the, when the, you know, the margins in some of these, in fact, most of these
00:02:00.220
businesses are incredibly slim. They can't absorb a big increase in the cost of containers. So that gets
00:02:05.740
passed on to the consumer. So it's also an inflationary policy. And what gets me is that if you
00:02:11.080
actually look at the, these alternatives, they're often worse for the environment than the plastics
00:02:16.100
are. There is a good solution here. The plastics industry in Canada has actually been very innovative
00:02:21.600
and productive in putting forward solutions. For starters, we have a lot more, I guess,
00:02:27.360
calling it biodegradable plastics might sound like an oxymoron, but there are products that are
00:02:32.380
biodegradable and look very, some of them aren't really plastic, but they look a lot like plastic and
00:02:37.200
they perform the functions pretty much equally as well as plastic. And a lot of, as you say,
00:02:42.800
as well, the whole legal environment is up in the air right now. We had a federal court decide
00:02:48.480
Stephen Guibault and his plastics are toxic notion was not scientific. It had no basis in reality or
00:02:55.940
science or fact. And so they overturned that decision. So right now we're kind of in limbo.
00:03:01.480
Guibault has said he'll appeal it, but he hasn't done it yet. And as we know, the courts don't tend to
00:03:06.240
move very quickly in this country and we're likely to have an election at least in the next 14 months
00:03:10.420
or so, please let's have one. But so I really wonder, I guess BC is also coming up for an
00:03:17.940
election. And I was noticing in some of the background I read on this issue, they seem to
00:03:22.500
feel they have strong support out on the left coast there for the plastics ban. So I would suspect this
00:03:29.580
is purely politically motivated. They want to look like they're doing something before the election.
00:03:34.940
But again, when you actually look at the facts, definitely higher cost, definitely less
00:03:40.940
effective, because I've seen some of these paper containers and you get them home and they're like
00:03:46.020
mush, you know, and like you say, you hope you're not wearing your dinner instead of eating it.
00:03:49.980
But also when you actually do the research on them, they're actually often worse for the
00:03:55.680
environment. So a lot of this is tokenism, as you say, virtue signaling. And what worries me in
00:04:01.080
particular, and again, we'll have to dig into it a wee bit more, but what worries me in particular
00:04:05.680
about this BC's plans is apparently their next step is things like plastic film, like what you see a lot
00:04:13.320
of your food in and plastic containers like styrofoam and some other plastic versions that contain meat and
00:04:20.820
things like that. When you get into replacing these things, you're getting into unsanitary food
00:04:26.320
because these items are incredibly effective. They keep things clean. They keep our food clean
00:04:32.400
and fresh. They often are good for the environment because if you have stuff that stays fresh or
00:04:37.940
longer, you don't throw it out. You're not wasting anywhere near as much food. So I think that next
00:04:43.220
step could be even worse in a number of ways and even stupider, frankly, for the environment. So I think
00:04:49.500
we've got a lot of virtue signaling going on here. We've got also this unsettled legal environment where we
00:04:54.320
don't know, A, if it's going to be appealed. And if so, then this could change dramatically. So why
00:05:00.380
they're doing it now, I think it's all the upcoming BC election.
00:05:03.600
And interestingly enough, we've seen in other jurisdictions with various bans, such as Calgary,
00:05:09.680
that even environmentally friendly reusable alternatives are captured by the ban. There was
00:05:14.520
a case in Calgary where a store decided to have its own reusable bag and it was told, no, no, no,
00:05:19.940
because of the plastic bag ban, you can't do this. And in Cal and at BC, I was looking at this and it
00:05:24.900
sounds like their ban is even going to capture some compostable plastics and biodegradable
00:05:30.960
plastics. So they're doing the same thing, which is that even some products that have been made
00:05:34.040
specifically to avoid the purported issues with plastics are still being banned anyway.
00:05:39.660
Yeah. No, and this is what I was alluding to earlier. We have, we have a very innovative industry
00:05:44.300
in Canada. They're coming up with good stuff all the time that, that recycles. A lot of plastics are
00:05:49.800
almost infinitely recyclable as well. If we had some better recycling systems, we'd have much less
00:05:55.300
of an issue with plastics in general going into waste. And that's somebody's behavior. That's not
00:06:00.320
necessarily banning or whatever. That's people's behavior that has to change, but also to make it
00:06:05.480
easier for people by, you know, by making these processes of recycling and so on, a lot more
00:06:10.680
transparent, a lot more convenient and so on. But you're absolutely right. I know for me, my kids
00:06:17.020
laugh at me because I call myself the container queen. Whenever I see a container, I, oh, I love
00:06:22.720
that container. I'm going to keep it for, and I recycle them myself multiple, multiple, multiple
00:06:27.880
times until they virtually fall apart. And I know an awful lot of people that do the same thing.
00:06:32.620
So one of the innovativeness of the industry is not being acknowledged and accepted. And I know the
00:06:37.760
story of Matt Calgett was a food co-op. And they had these very innovative Canadian product
00:06:43.600
that could be used around the world, successfully have a great export industry. You know, there's
00:06:48.300
all kinds of pluses that could be made of this. And yet instead, the government chooses this,
00:06:52.960
you know, this, this dull weapon of bans instead of refining it, looking at positive solutions
00:07:00.460
and often, often making things worse. And that's the part that kills me. A lot of these alternatives
00:07:05.540
end up being worse and it squelches, you know, our industry is very important in Canada.
00:07:10.700
Our plastics industry, it employs a lot of people. It again, produces a lot of taxes for
00:07:15.520
government as all industries do and so on. So I think to have a lot more confidence in
00:07:20.280
them to produce some innovative products that help to solve the problem rather than these
00:07:24.800
bans that cost us all, are often worse and are not based in science.
00:07:30.460
I have to ask you, Catherine, you and your group notwithstanding, where is the industry
00:07:35.900
on this? And just as a bit of context, when this topic arose a while back, I tried to get
00:07:40.440
one of the, the head of the big plastics advocacy group in the country on the show. And originally
00:07:46.440
it was like, yeah, let's set it up. And then eventually, oh, we have to cancel and nothing
00:07:50.340
back. And I suspect they didn't want to talk to quote unquote, conservative media. And
00:07:54.420
I've had similar issues with some of the heads of oil and some of the major oil and gas companies.
00:07:59.060
And I have to wonder that because small and medium businesses, and certainly your organization
00:08:03.300
have been spoken up, but a lot of the big players in this seem to just be taking it.
00:08:07.880
Yeah, this is not uncommon though, Andrew, in all industries. It's not unique to plastics.
00:08:12.940
We find the big guys typically don't want to rock the boat. They want to go along to get along.
00:08:17.700
And that's foolish to my way of thinking, because they're basically betraying their members.
00:08:22.220
They're not sticking up for the truth and the facts in their industry. We have a number
00:08:26.480
of plastics manufacturers in our membership, and I've spoken extensively to them. I've learned
00:08:30.340
a lot more about plastics than I knew a couple of years ago. I'll tell you that much. And
00:08:34.620
they have a very simple kind of motto. And they say plastics belong in the economy, but
00:08:40.980
not in the environment. And that is when you get to more innovative solutions with better
00:08:45.860
products that degrade in a landfill or, you know, fulfill the environmental imperative a
00:08:51.940
lot better. But also the whole recycling thing. We don't recycle very well. And as I mentioned
00:08:57.580
earlier, plastics are eminently recyclable and often almost infinitely. So, and they're
00:09:03.260
so innovative. Again, it's plastics under the, you can't look around the room you're in right
00:09:08.620
now and not see a hundred things that have plastic in them. And it has revolutionized our
00:09:14.420
medical system. When are they going to start to say, we're going to replace something we're
00:09:18.460
going to put in your body, which plastics is the perfect answer for? Because again, it's
00:09:23.280
it's hygienic. It's, it's durable, low cost, you know, all that good stuff. Plastics have
00:09:29.560
been revolutionary and positive on balance for our economy. And of course, there's some negatives
00:09:34.240
as there is with anything, but we can do a lot better having practical solutions, not
00:09:38.360
these, you know, blunt instrument bands that do a lot more harm than good.
00:09:43.080
Catherine Swift, president of the Coalition of Concerned Manufacturers and Businesses of Canada.
00:09:48.780
I'm sorry, I missed your big flagship dinner a couple of weeks back. I was out of town,
00:09:52.820
but I heard it went well and always good to talk to you, Catherine.
00:09:56.280
Thanks for listening to The Andrew Lawton Show. Support the program by donating to True North