Recycling Council of Alberta Presented at the Globe 2020 Conference

Connector February 2020

Early in February, the RCA’s executive director, Christina Seidel, spoke at this year’s Globe Conference in Vancouver. Hundreds of participants from Canada and around the world attended the conference and heard from experts in sustainability and environmental programs. Renowned speakers included David Wallace-Wells and The Honourable Jonathan Wilkison, Minister of the Environment.

Christina spoke in the session during the Industry and Innovation panel on How to Get to Zero Plastic Waste, where she and fellow panelists from BASF, NOVA, Coca Cola and Pyrowave discussed how innovations and industry efforts are creating opportunities to meaningfully achieve zero plastic waste.

Christina began by pointing out primary design issues, with half of plastic made to be single-use, resulting in most of the plastics that enter the environment being single-use. She then set the future stage by summarizing policy moves to ban single-use items in the European Union, and plans to reduce plastic waste in Canada, including the federal Minister’s announcement to ban harmful single-use plastics under the Canadian Environmental Protection Act. The presentation then covered opportunities to move towards a Circular Economy for plastics through approaches such as reducing the production of plastics, renewable low-carbon plastics, mechanical and chemical recycling, renewable energy inputs, and Extended Producer Responsibility.

To view the Canada-Wide Action Plan on Zero Plastics Waste visit: https://www.ccme.ca/files/Resources/waste/plastics/1289_CCME%20Canada-wide%20Action%20Plan%20on%20Zero%20Plastic%20Waste_EN_June%2027-19.pdf