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The report suggests Canada could get to the point where 90 per cent of plastic avoids landfill by 2030 with an investment of between $4.3 billion and $8.6 billion, the addition of 167 new sorting and recycling facilities, a lot of government regulation and consumer willpower. That would increase revenues in the recycling industry from $500 million to $3 billion, and create 42,000 new direct and indirect jobs.

Sarah King, head of the oceans-and-plastic program for Greenpeace Canada, said the report is so focused on increasing recycling it avoids almost any discussion of cutting down how much plastic we use in the first place.

King said her fear is that Canada is not having the hard conversation about banning certain plastic products entirely — everything from plastic grocery bags and black garbage bags to plastic cups and take-out containers. Several municipalities in Canada are looking at such bans and the whole province of Prince Edward Island is set to ban plastic grocery bags on July 1.

King said the leadership has to come from Ottawa.

“Ultimately we want to move towards a ban on all non-essential plastics,” she said.

Canadians produce so much plastic that recycling just can’t handle the volume and “the only way to address an endless flowing tap is to turn it off,” she said.

She also is concerned that Deloitte’s zero-plastic-garbage outline includes burning one-fifth of plastic waste for energy. Burning facilities are less picky about what is in the plastic they are taking than recyclers are, which reduces the burden on consumers to properly sort their items and allows for a wider variety of items to be collected.

But King said, burning plastic produces ash and other toxic pollutants along with any energy.