Noble plastic bans needed across the globe, not just in Canada

Too much plastic is harming our environment, likely far more than man-made climate change from industrial pollution despite the latter being pounded into our collective skulls daily.

Since the 1950s some eight billion tons of plastics have been produced and roughly only nine percent of that is ever recycled. The remainder, slow to decompose, ends up in landfills and the majority reportedly ends up in the world’s oceans.

That is why when Prime Minister Trudeau announced the Liberal plan to ban single serving plastics in Canada starting in 2021 (at the earliest), the concept is indeed good for the world however (like the carbon tax) the end result may be quite ineffective.

Canada is a carbon sink. Our trees, plants and boreal forests suck in more carbon than the country’s population is capable of emitting. Meanwhile China’s emissions and the whole Asian Pacific region has an annual carbon growth rate of 3.1 per cent and will be responsible for over half the world’s carbon emissions within just a few years. . . . contd.