OTTAWA — A global treaty to end plastic waste will not be ambitious enough if it does not include some limits on plastic production, Environment Minister Steven Guilbeault said Tuesday as the fourth round of negotiations kicked off in Ottawa.
The scientific evidence shows that reducing the amount of plastic that's produced is the only way to keep it out of the environment, not to mention what the world eats, drinks and breathes, environmental groups say.
Guilbeault has been hesitant to take a specific position on the call for production caps, worried that being too prescriptive before negotiations happen could sink the Ottawa talks before they even began."Frankly, what I've heard in the last two days of ministerial roundtables ... is that people don't just want an agreement, they want an ambitious agreement," Guilbeault said.
The U.S.-based Ocean Conservancy reports that 11 million tonnes of plastic end up in the oceans each year — an average quantity roughly equivalent to tossing a commercial jetliner into the ocean every minute. Sarah King, head of the plastics and ocean campaign at Greenpeace Canada, agreed it is unlikely that a solid agreement on capping production will be reached in Ottawa.
"We need Canada to champion the boldest measures, and that's cuts to plastic production and ensuring that reuse and reduction targets stay in that text."
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