Plastic items that are commonly used in everyone's life, such as shopping bags, tableware, straws, stirring rods, etc., will all be banned and will eventually disappear completely!

Federal Environment and Climate Change Minister Steven Guilbeault and Health Minister Jean-Yves Duclos jointly stated that the plastics targeted by the ban include shopping bags, cutlery, catering containers, circular portable packaging, Stir bar and most straws.

From the end of 2022, Canada officially prohibits companies from importing or producing plastic bags and takeaway boxes; from the end of 2023, these plastic products will no longer be sold in the country; by the end of 2025, not only will they not produce or import, but all these plastic products in Canada cannot be exported to other places!

Canada's goal is to achieve "zero plastic into landfills, beaches, rivers, wetlands, forests" by 2030, and let plastic disappear from nature.

In addition to plastic bags and takeaway boxes, the ban also applies to single-use plastic straws, stirring sticks and knives, 6 cans or water bottle retaining rings!

This time, the new regulations announced by the Canadian Federation target a total of 6 categories of single-use plastic products：

1. Plastic shopping bags

The plastic shopping bags that were previously provided for free will completely disappear from people's lives and will be replaced by paper bags or environmentally friendly shopping bags;

2. Plastic tableware

Plastic tableware commonly used for parties at home and picnics, including knives and forks, spoons, and chopsticks are all banned, and will be gradually withdrawn from the market. Production, sales, import and export are prohibited;

3. Plastic containers

Tableware and drink cups commonly used in Chinese restaurants are made of expanded polystyrene foam, extruded polystyrene foam, polyvinyl chloride, carbon black and an oxidatively degradable plastic, including clamshell containers, covered containers , boxes, cups, plates and bowls are prohibited;

4. Ring Portable Packaging(six-pack rings)

The ring-shaped portable packaging on the 6-pack of soda cans sold in supermarkets will also be discarded.

5. Stir bar

Anyone who goes to Tim Horton or Starbucks to buy coffee and will see a plastic stick used to stir, mix drinks or prevent drinks from spilling out of the lid of the container will also be banned altogether.

In fact, many coffee shops have now switched to wooden stir sticks.

6. Straws

Straws may be familiar to everyone. The Canadian government’s plastic ban this time includes soft and hard drink straws, which are all banned;

Not only the straws for take-out drinks, but also the plastic straws attached to the boxed juice are not allowed to be used, produced, imported or exported;

With special exceptions for industries and establishments, Canada will ban the manufacture and import of these single-use plastics, and this regulation will go into effect in December 2022!

"This (phased ban) will give Canadian businesses enough time to transition and deplete their existing inventories. We made a promise to Canadians that single-use plastics would be banned, and we're going all out."

Gilbert also said that when it goes into effect in December, Canadian businesses will provide sustainable solutions to the public, including paper straws and reusable shopping bags.

The plastic ban is believed to be familiar to many Chinese living in Greater Vancouver. Vancouver and Surrey have taken the lead in implementing the ban, and Victoria has followed suit.

Starting this year, many supermarkets, including Chinese supermarkets Datonghua, Superstore and Sobeys, have begun not to provide disposable shopping bags, but only provide paper bags, forcing everyone to bring environmentally friendly shopping bags when going out.

Starting from April 22, Walmart Canada also joined the ranks and officially implemented the ban on plastics.

McDonald's and other fast food restaurants have replaced straws with paper straws, and even paper bags have begun to collect money, which shows Canada's determination to ban plastic.

According to rough statistics, Canada uses as many as 15 billion plastic shopping bags and about 16 million plastic straws every year. Such single-use plastics account for a large proportion of the white garbage on major beaches across the country, seriously affecting the country's environment and ecology!

One of the key tasks of the Trudeau government is the environment. Decrees such as energy conservation and carbon reduction, and the ban on plastics can all show its determination.

Over the next 10 years, the government's plastic ban will eliminate more than 1.3 million tons of hard-to-recycle plastic waste and reduce plastic pollution by more than 22,000 tons, which is equivalent to more than 1 million garbage bags of plastic.

In fact, this time the plastic ban is just the beginning. In 2019, these six types of plastic products only accounted for about 5% of the national plastic waste.

France has banned most of these plastics in 2021, and this year has begun phasing out plastic packaging for more than 30 types of fruits and vegetables, plastic packaging for newspapers, non-biodegradable plastic in tea bags, and distribution of free plastic for children with fast food Toy.

Canada's environment minister also admitted that Canada is not the first country to ban plastics, but it is in a leading position.

On June 7, a study in The Cryosphere, a journal of the European Geosciences Union, showed that scientists discovered microplastics in snow samples from Antarctica for the first time, shocking the world!

The occurrence of microplastics in Antarctic waters occurred as early as 2018, but the discovery of these pollutants in snow in Antarctica is the first time, which has aroused the concern of environmentalists from all walks of life around the world.

The researchers found an average of 29 microplastics per liter of melted snow. The impact of microplastics reaching remote areas like Antarctica is undoubtedly huge.

Over millions of years, Antarctic organisms have adapted to extreme environmental conditions, and human-caused environmental changes are threatening ecosystems in "the last pure land on Earth."

Once microplastics appear in snow and ice in high mountains or polar regions, it is possible to accelerate the melting of the cryosphere by absorbing sunlight and enhancing local heating; in addition, microplastics may also pass through cloud ice cores in the atmosphere, further affecting climate.

The entire environment is interlinked and closely related. Human beings, by their own efforts, destroy the natural ecosystem, and finally get their retribution back on themselves. Various extreme weather phenomena in recent years are the best examples.

But no matter what, the plastic ban announced by Canada today is indeed a step forward, and Canadians’ daily life will also be completely changed. When you go to the supermarket to buy things and throw garbage in the backyard, you need to pay attention to the use of plastic. , adapt to the "plastic ban life".

Not only for the sake of the earth, but also for the sake of human beings not to kill themselves, environmental protection is a major issue that deserves to be thought deeply. I hope everyone can take action to protect the earth on which we live.