Liberals ban plastics - for some dumbass reason.
With all due ceremonial virtue signalling, the government announced a ban on a variety of single-use plastics the other day. Not much about what they said was apparently true, but it's one of those sorts of policies which looks good to earnest environmentalists who vote Liberal. It will cost jobs and money and inconvenience, but hey, that hardly matters. Plastic in Canada contributes virtually nothing to the plastic in the world's oceans. In fact, western countries contribute an estimated 2% of the plastic choking fish and dolphins. Of that, Canada's share would be minuscule. Declaring plastics a 'toxin' seems to lack both common sense and fly in the face of science. Not only won't this help the environment it might actually harm it.
The first of these negative effects is that it will drive consumers to alternatives, which often have a greater environmental impact. When the Environment Ministry of Denmark evaluated the environmental impact of plastic bags versus the alternatives, it found the alternatives came with significant negative externalities, mainly stemming from the energy and carbon costs of their production.
Given these costs, paper bags needed to be reused 43 times to have the same total impact on the environment as plastic bags. A conventional cotton bag needed to be used over 7,100 times to equal a plastic bag’s net environmental cost, while an organic cotton bag had to be used over 20,000 times.
https://financialpost.com/opinion/david-clement-ottawas-new-plastics-policy-is-radical-overkill
https://nationalpost.com/opinion/co...mful/wcm/6a8bc11d-1610-43d2-938f-1f436f453b2f
With all due ceremonial virtue signalling, the government announced a ban on a variety of single-use plastics the other day. Not much about what they said was apparently true, but it's one of those sorts of policies which looks good to earnest environmentalists who vote Liberal. It will cost jobs and money and inconvenience, but hey, that hardly matters. Plastic in Canada contributes virtually nothing to the plastic in the world's oceans. In fact, western countries contribute an estimated 2% of the plastic choking fish and dolphins. Of that, Canada's share would be minuscule. Declaring plastics a 'toxin' seems to lack both common sense and fly in the face of science. Not only won't this help the environment it might actually harm it.
The first of these negative effects is that it will drive consumers to alternatives, which often have a greater environmental impact. When the Environment Ministry of Denmark evaluated the environmental impact of plastic bags versus the alternatives, it found the alternatives came with significant negative externalities, mainly stemming from the energy and carbon costs of their production.
Given these costs, paper bags needed to be reused 43 times to have the same total impact on the environment as plastic bags. A conventional cotton bag needed to be used over 7,100 times to equal a plastic bag’s net environmental cost, while an organic cotton bag had to be used over 20,000 times.
https://financialpost.com/opinion/david-clement-ottawas-new-plastics-policy-is-radical-overkill
https://nationalpost.com/opinion/co...mful/wcm/6a8bc11d-1610-43d2-938f-1f436f453b2f