Trudeau's plastics ban to cost consumers nearly a quarter billion in the first year alone
Switching from plastics to drink-box-water-bottle-sort-of-things will result in $205 million in increased consumer costs in 2024; the first year of the new policy implementation.
Justin Trudeau's ban on single-use plastic will cost consumers nearly a quarter billion dollars in the first year alone, according to a report prepared by Environment and Climate Change Canada.
Switching from inert, sanitary plastics to Trudeau's preferred drink-box-water-bottle-sort-of-things will result in $205 million in increased consumer costs in 2024; the first year of the new policy implementation.
The single-use plastics ban outlaws grocery bags, six-pack rings, stir sticks, plastic cutlery and disposable polystyrene food containers, forcing the replacement of “30 billion single-use plastic items annually or around 800 single-use plastic items per Canadian”.
According to a recent Blacklock's Reporter article, wherein the independent news website obtained a recent Regulatory Impact Analysis Statement prepared by Environment and Climate Change Canada on the government's recent restrictions on single-use plastics, consumers would be hammered in the pocketbook in return for a negligible impact on global plastic pollution:
Substitutes exist but would cost more, said a Regulatory Impact Analysis Statement. Plastic checkout bags that cost 3¢ apiece could be replaced by 8¢ paper bags, wrote staff. Consumers use about 15.6 billion checkout bags annually.
Plastic forks manufactured at 4¢ apiece could be replaced with wooden cutlery at 9¢. Penny straws may be substituted with paper straws worth 3¢ apiece. Plastic six-pack rings worth 3¢ each would be replaced with cardboard alternatives at 34¢.
The statement also shows the data used to support the prohibition on single-use plastics also wildly over-estimated the amount of Canadian plastic making it into water-ways.
Environment Ministry staff claimed in an October 2020 analysis that Canadians were responsible for 29,000 tonnes of marine plastic in the world's oceans.
However, the Regulatory Impact Analysis Statement noted the actual figure was a fraction was less than one-tenth of the original, already low estimate:
2,500 tonnes of the plastic waste generated in Canada in 2016 entered the oceans as plastic pollution while the amount of plastic pollution entering Canadian freshwaters, e.g. the Great Lakes, other lakes and rivers but never reaching the oceans is unknown,” “Internationally academic studies have estimated the total amount of plastic pollution entering oceans globally at between 8 million tonnes and 13 million tonnes per year.
A 2019 analysis by Environment and Climate Change Canada found that the plastics and resin industry contributed 35 billion dollars to the Canadian economy in sales, and employs 93,000 people. across 1,932 establishments.
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