Federal Plastics Registry
A federal plastics registry is intended to improve the Government’s knowledge of plastic waste, value recovery and pollution across Canada. The federal plastics registry would standardize the data that is collected on provincial and territorial Extended Producer Responsibility (EPR) programs. From July to October 2022, the government received submissions on their consultation paper outlining the proposed approach to establishing a federal plastics registry. An updated version was released on April 18, 2023. To understand the Federal Plastics Registry proposal, we recommend reviewing the documents posted by ECCC on the Government of Canada website, which you can find here.
Parties, specifically provincial and territorial producers and federal producers will be obligated to report. Any businesses exempted under a provincial or territorial EPR policy will only need to report plastics placed on the market. The registry will require particular data points from producers of plastic products within each category. Data points include plastics collected for diversion, plastics successfully reused, and plastics sent to landfill.
The registry will provide data that is open and easily accessible to Canadians and will conform to the Directive on Open Government and the Directive on Service and Digital. Despite the open data, the registry should not compromise confidential information provided by producers.
Phase 1 reporting will begin on June 1, 2024.
Conclusion
Change is hard. While we expect that these changes will be perceived as threatening to operations, requiring drastic changes for certain industries, they’re also likely to be perceived as not aggressive enough by others. We generally view the proposed regulations as being aligned with an attempt by the developed world to reduce and recover plastic waste and encourage packaging alternatives. For example, as of January 1, 2023, new EU laws require brands that export to France and Italy to provide recycling information on all consumer product labels. We recommend that entities with experience in the French and Italian markets look to compliance efforts in those markets to better contextualize these changes.
Environment and Climate Change Canada intend to release finalized regulations regarding recycled content rules before the end of 2023.
Partners and stakeholders are invited to provide feedback on the Recycled content and labelling rules for plastics: regulatory framework paper and the Technical paper: Federal Plastics Registry by May 18, 2023. Feedback can be sent via mail or email to:
Tracey Spack, Director
Plastics Regulatory Affairs Division
351 Blvd Saint-Joseph
Gatineau, QC
K1A 0H3
[email protected]
