Facts Your Should Know
Canada is banning 6 single use plastic by the beginning of 2023!
- Grocery checkout bags
- Straws
- Stir sticks
- Six-pack rings
- Plastic cutlery
- Food takeout containers
This is going towards the goal of zero plastic waste by 2030.
The Great Pacific Garbage Patch
- An Accumulation of marine debris in the Northern Pacific Ocean
- 8 Million tonnes end up in the ocean each year
- It is twice the size of Alberta
Microplastics
- A plastic piece less then 5mm (a grain of rice or smaller)
- Primary microplastic - intended to be micro-plastics, microbeads
- Secondary microplastic - broken down from big piece of plastic , mircofibers, microplastics
- Mircoplastics and micro-fibers from clothing get washed down the drain, and are too small to be filtered out by water treatment facilities
Single Use Plastic Bags
- A trillion plastic bags are used in the world year
- Worldwide 2 million plastic bags are used per minute
- 15 billion bags are used in Canada every year
- Can be recycled if they are bundles together, if singular they are too lightweight to be recycled
Single Use Plastic Straws
- Approximately 57 million straws are used in Canada every day
- Can't be recycled due to small size and they are too lightweight
- Compostable straws are good but only if put in the compost
Others Facts!
- 80% of ocean plastic come from rivers
- There are micro plastics/fibers in our drinking water
- The global recycling rate is 9%
- The volume of plastic waste is expected to increase 4 times by 2050
- 40% of plastic is generated is for packaging
- Globally one garbage truck load of plastic waste enters the ocean every minute.
- Canadians thrown away over 3 million tonnes of plastic waste every free
What you can do
- Don’t buy overly package goods
- Refuse straws (even compostable)
- Use reusable bags, containers, straws, water bottles
- Bundle any bags together so they get recycled
- Support local businesses with good environmental footprints
- Pick up plastic litter when you see it
Credited Links/ Other Resources
https://ourworldindata.org/faq-on-plastics#how-much-plastic-and-waste-do-we-produce
https://www.nationalgeographic.org/encyclopedia/great-pacific-garbage-patch/
https://oceanservice.noaa.gov/facts/microplastics.html
https://www.worldatlas.com/articles/what-are-microplastics-and-why-are-they-bad.html
https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/edmonton/micro-plastics-edmonton-water-research-macewan-1.5179945
https://www.1millionwomen.com.au/blog/7-insane-facts-about-plastic-bags/
https://www.sustainability.vic.gov.au/You-and-your-home/Live-sustainably/Single-use-items/Straws
https://www.chatelaine.com/news/canada-single-use-plastic-ban-faq/
https://wrwcanada.com/en/get-involved/resources/plastics-themed-resources/plastic-facts
https://www.chatelaine.com/news/canada-single-use-plastic-ban-faq/
https://wrwcanada.com/en/get-involved/resources/plastics-themed-resources/plastic-facts
https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2019/11/five-ways-to-reduce-single-use-plastic-in-the-middle-east/
https://oceana.ca/en/blog/canadas-plastic-problem-sorting-fact-fiction
https://ourworldindata.org/faq-on-plastics#how-much-plastic-and-waste-do-we-produce
https://globalnews.ca/news/7383166/canada-plastics-ban-pollution-climate-change/
https://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/single-use-plastics-1.5753327
