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Ottawa should end war on plastics for sake of the environment

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4 minute read

From the Fraser Institute

By Kenneth P. Green

Here’s the shocker: Meng shows that for 15 out of the 16 uses, plastic products incur fewer GHG emissions than their alternatives…

For example, when you swap plastic grocery bags for paper, you get 80 per cent higher GHG emissions. Substituting plastic furniture for wood—50 per cent higher GHG emissions. Substitute plastic-based carpeting with wool—80 per cent higher GHG emissions.

It’s been known for years that efforts to ban plastic products—and encourage people to use alternatives such as paper, metal or glass—can backfire. By banning plastic waste and plastic products, governments lead consumers to switch to substitutes, but those substitutes, mainly bulkier and heavier paper-based products, mean more waste to manage.

Now a new study by Fanran Meng of the University of Sheffield drives the point home—plastic substitutes are not inherently better for the environment. Meng uses comprehensive life-cycle analysis to understand how plastic substitutes increase or decrease greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions by assessing the GHG emissions of 16 uses of plastics in five major plastic-using sectors: packaging, building and construction, automotive, textiles and consumer durables. These plastics, according to Meng, account for about 90 per cent of global plastic volume.

Here’s the shocker: Meng shows that for 15 out of the 16 uses, plastic products incur fewer GHG emissions than their alternatives. Read that again. When considering 90 per cent of global plastic use, alternatives to plastic lead to greater GHG emissions than the plastic products they displace. For example, when you swap plastic grocery bags for paper, you get 80 per cent higher GHG emissions. Substituting plastic furniture for wood—50 per cent higher GHG emissions. Substitute plastic-based carpeting with wool—80 per cent higher GHG emissions.

A few substitutions were GHG neutral, such as swapping plastic drinking cups and milk containers with paper alternatives. But overall, in the 13 uses where a plastic product has lower emissions than its non-plastic alternatives, the GHG emission impact is between 10 per cent and 90 per cent lower than the next-best alternatives.

Meng concludes that “Across most applications, simply switching from plastics to currently available non-plastic alternatives is not a viable solution for reducing GHG emissions. Therefore, care should be taken when formulating policies or interventions to reduce plastic demand that they result in the removal of the plastics from use rather than a switch to an alternative material” adding that “applying material substitution strategies to plastics never really makes sense.” Instead, Meng suggests that policies encouraging re-use of plastic products would more effectively reduce GHG emissions associated with plastics, which, globally, are responsible for 4.5 per cent of global emissions.

The Meng study should drive the last nail into the coffin of the war on plastics. This study shows that encouraging substitutes for plastic—a key element of the Trudeau government’s climate plan—will lead to higher GHG emissions than sticking with plastics, making it more difficult to achieve the government’s goal of making Canada a “net-zero” emitter of GHG by 2050.

Clearly, the Trudeau government should end its misguided campaign against plastic products, “single use” or otherwise. According to the evidence, plastic bans and substitution policies not only deprive Canadians of products they value (and in many cases, products that protect human health), they are bad for the environment and bad for the climate. The government should encourage Canadians to reuse their plastic products rather than replace them.

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2025 Federal Election

Poilievre will cancel Mark Carney’s new Liberal packaging law and scrap the Liberal plastic ban!

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From Conservative Party Communications

Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre promised today that a new Conservative government will stop Mark Carney’s proposed Liberal food tax and scrap the existing Liberal plastic ban. Poilievre will:

  • Stop proposed new labelling and packaging requirements that will raise the cost of fresh produce by as much as 34% and cost the average Canadian household an additional $400 each year.
  • Scrap the Liberal plastics ban, including the ban on straws, grocery bags, food containers and cutlery, and other single-use plastics, letting consumers and businesses choose what works for them.
  • Protect restaurants, grocers, and low-income Canadians from one-size-fits-all packaging rules that disproportionately affect those who can least afford it.

“After the Lost Liberal Decade, many Canadians can barely afford to put food on the table. And now Mark Carney and the Liberals want to make it even harder with a new food packaging law that will raise the price of food–again,” said Poilievre. “A new Conservative government will keep food prices down by scrapping the Liberal plastic ban and stopping Carney’s new Liberal food tax.”

After a decade of out-of-control spending and massive tax increases, families are spending $800 more on food this year than they did in 2024, and food banks had to handle a record two million visits in a single month. In Montreal, 44 percent of CEGEP students are experiencing some form of food insecurity, while places like HawkesburyKingstonToronto and Mississauga have all declared food insecurity emergencies.

And food prices are still rocketing upwards, surging by 3.2% over the last year, with no end in sight. In the last month alone, food inflation increased by 1.9 percentage points—the largest monthly jump in food prices in decades.

As if this wasn’t bad enough, Liberals have made life even more expensive and inconvenient for Canadians by banning plastics – including everything from straws to bags to food packaging. The current Liberal ban on single-use plastics will cost Canadians $1.3 billion dollars over the next decade.

Now Mark Carney wants to make it worse by adding complicated and costly new food packaging rules that will drive up the price of food even more–in effect, a new Liberal food tax. Plastic food packaging makes up 1/3 of all plastic packaging in Canada. The proposed Liberal food tax will cost the average Canadian household an additional $400 each year, waste half a million tonnes of food, decrease access to imported fruit and produce, and increase food inflation. The Chemistry Industry Association of Canada has also warned that this tax will put up to 60,000 Canadians out of work.

“The Liberals’ ideological crusade against convenience has already driven up food prices and the last thing Canadians need is Mark Carney’s new food tax added directly to your grocery bill,” said Poilievre. “The choice for Canadians is clear, a fourth Liberal term that will make food even more expensive or a new Conservative government that will axe the food tax and bring back straws, grocery bags and other items, to make life more affordable and convenient for Canadians – For a Change.”

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Ted Cruz, Jim Jordan Ramp Up Pressure On Google Parent Company To Deal With ‘Censorship’

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From the Daily Caller News Foundation

By Andi Shae Napier

Republican Texas Sen. Ted Cruz and Republican Ohio Rep. Jim Jordan are turning their attention to Google over concerns that the tech giant is censoring users and infringing on Americans’ free speech rights.

Google’s parent company Alphabet, which also owns YouTube, appears to be the GOP’s next Big Tech target. Lawmakers seem to be turning their attention to Alphabet after Mark Zuckerberg’s Meta ended its controversial fact-checking program in favor of a Community Notes system similar to the one used by Elon Musk’s X.

Cruz recently informed reporters of his and fellow senators’ plans to protect free speech. 

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“Stopping online censorship is a major priority for the Commerce Committee,” Cruz said, as reported by Politico. “And we are going to utilize every point of leverage we have to protect free speech online.”

Following his meeting with Alphabet CEO Sundar Pichai last month, Cruz told the outlet, “Big Tech censorship was the single most important topic.”

Jordan, Chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, sent subpoenas to Alphabet and other tech giants such as RumbleTikTok and Apple in February regarding “compliance with foreign censorship laws, regulations, judicial orders, or other government-initiated efforts” with the intent to discover how foreign governments, or the Biden administration, have limited Americans’ access to free speech.

“Throughout the previous Congress, the Committee expressed concern over YouTube’s censorship of conservatives and political speech,” Jordan wrote in a letter to Pichai in March. “To develop effective legislation, such as the possible enactment of new statutory limits on the executive branch’s ability to work with Big Tech to restrict the circulation of content and deplatform users, the Committee must first understand how and to what extent the executive branch coerced and colluded with companies and other intermediaries to censor speech.”

Jordan subpoenaed tech CEOs in 2023 as well, including Satya Nadella of Microsoft, Tim Cook of Apple and Pichai, among others.

Despite the recent action against the tech giant, the battle stretches back to President Donald Trump’s first administration. Cruz began his investigation of Google in 2019 when he questioned Karan Bhatia, the company’s Vice President for Government Affairs & Public Policy at the time, in a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing. Cruz brought forth a presentation suggesting tech companies, including Google, were straying from free speech and leaning towards censorship.

Even during Congress’ recess, pressure on Google continues to mount as a federal court ruled Thursday that Google’s ad-tech unit violates U.S. antitrust laws and creates an illegal monopoly. This marks the second antitrust ruling against the tech giant as a different court ruled in 2024 that Google abused its dominance of the online search market.

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