How does the Canadian Federal Plastics Registry effect your company?
by Aaron Sarah at 11:01 in Emerging, Packaging
At the end of 2023, the draft notice regarding the creation of a federal plastics registry was published in the Canada gazette for consultation. The Canadian government have stated that currently 4.4 million tonnes of plastic are thrown away annually, with only 9% currently recycled. The aim of the federal plastics registry would to be to allow the government to track plastic waste from source to end of life, giving them harmonised data on what products and type of plastic are the biggest problems across the whole of Canada.
What would the registry mean for companies?
Currently, extended producer responsibility reporting is done on a provincial basis in Canada. The formation of a federal plastics registry would see producers be obligated for the first national level report in Canada. In its current draft form, the federal plastic registry notice applies to plastic product producers and providers of services such as recyclers. The categories of plastic products that would be in scope of being reported to the registry is extensive, with examples including:
- Reusable packaging with categories such as beverage containers and food contact packaging
- Single-use packaging
- Electronic equipment with subcategories including power tools, toys and medical devices
- Tires
- Transportation- for plastic used in Automobiles, motorcycles and buses etc
- Construction with subcategories including roofing materials and insulation
- White goods
- Agricultural containers
- Textiles with subcategories including interior textiles, industrial textiles and footwear
In scope producers would be required to submit information on each calendar year into an online portal, with the first report due in 2025. The information required would be split into two sections. The first would contain administrative information which includes the provinces in which the plastic product is placed, the EPR programs to which the producer is subject to and the PRO's in which the producer engages with. The second section will be the main section where producers will need to provide the information which the Canadian Government will use to track the life-cycle of the plastic placed on the market. This section would be made up of 16 data points including:
- the identity of all the resins used to make plastic products placed on the Canadian market
- the source of the resin used to make plastic products placed on the Canadian market
- the total quantity in tonnes of plastic in products placed on the Canadian market
- the total quantity in tonnes of plastic collected at end of life and sent for diversion
- the total quantity in tonnes of diverted plastics that are recycled
- the total quantity in tonnes of diverted plastics that are recovered for energy recovery
Dealing with the complexities:
Whilst this is still in draft form and we do not know the final reporting format, it can be of no doubt that this would be a complicated report for producers to complete. The draft has stated that producer responsibility organisations (PRO's) can complete the report on behalf of the producers but this still leaves the gap to which producers will have to provide PROs with relevant information needed for them to do the report. The government is taking comments on the draft until 13 February 2024 and aim to publish the final version in the gazette by the end of 2024.
If you would like to keep track of the Canadian federal plastics registry or if you would like more information on how the report could affect your company and how we can assist in completing the future reports, please contact us at Lorax EPI today.
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