Poll shows support for plastic crackdown

Most Canadians support a crackdown on single-use plastics and less plastic production, a new poll indicates just weeks before international negotiations kick off in Ottawa on a global plastics treaty.

The research commissioned by Greenpeace International and conducted by Censuswide surveyed more than 19,000 people in 19 countries, including Canada. The global survey posed questions about plastic pollution, production and the global plastics treaty. Results show eight out of 10 people support a treaty to reduce plastics production, stop biodiversity loss and limit global warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius.

Support was also high in Canada. Approximately 1,000 Canadians were surveyed and 73 per cent said cutting plastic production is necessary to stop plastic pollution. However, populations from wealthy countries — Canada, Germany, Japan, Norway, the U.K. and the U.S. — were slightly less supportive than respondents in many Global South countries, which bear the brunt of the pollution.

More than 99 per cent of plastic is made from chemicals sourced from fossil fuels. Environmental groups like Greenpeace want the treaty to commit to reducing production — not just recycling and managing the vast quantities of waste created.

Globally, only nine per cent of plastic is successfully recycled, according to the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) 2019 statistics. Along with polluting oceans, lakes and waterways — which collectively contain an estimated 139 million tonnes, according to the OECD — plastics cause planet-warming greenhouse gas emissions over their life cycle. Plastics generated 3.4 per cent — 1.8 million tonnes — of global emissions in 2019. Ninety per cent came from the production of plastic and conversion from fossil fuels, according to the OECD.

Global plastics production doubled from 2000 to 2019, as did plastic waste generation. In the coming decades, production is projected to keep rising.

With the projected fall in demand for fossil fuels this decade as EVs and renewable energy displace fossil fuels, oil and gas companies are looking for ways to secure profits, said Julia Levin, associate director of national climate for Environmental Defence.

“We know that the petrochemical industry is Plan B for the oil and gas sector,” she said.

In three weeks, 173 countries will arrive in Canada to discuss a global plastics treaty. Ahead of the next round of negotiations in Ottawa, Greenpeace is proposing that the treaty establishes a target to reduce plastic production by at least 75 per cent below 2019 levels by 2040.

Over 80 per cent of global survey respondents were concerned about how plastic impacts the health of their children and loved ones. For example, when plastic garbage is incinerated, it releases toxins that are harmful to human health. This is one of many reasons a coalition of environmental groups is calling on federal, provincial and municipal governments to reject incineration as a waste solution.