Juno News - July 21, 2024


B.C. bans plastic and styrofoam takeout containers

Topics
ban on plastic and styrofoam takeout containers
Mentioned
Catherine Swift Andrew Lawton Show Stephen Guibault Matt Calgett
Smith says the left’s vision is bleak Biden's out; Trudeau's in Tofino

Episode Stats


Length

10 minutes

Words per minute

182.33

Word count

1,926

Sentence count

118

Harmful content

Toxicity

1

sentences flagged


Summary

Summaries generated with gmurro/bart-large-finetuned-filtered-spotify-podcast-summ .

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

Transcript generated with Whisper (turbo).
Toxicity classifications generated with s-nlp/roberta_toxicity_classifier .
Topics generated with Qwen2.5-3B-Instruct.
Hosts, guests, and mentioned names generated with spaCy (en_core_web_sm), reconciled against Wikidata.
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 0.94
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.
00:09:55.660 You too, Andrew.
00:09:56.280 Thanks for listening to The Andrew Lawton Show. Support the program by donating to True North
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