Canada has finalized regulations on how they will address climate change by banning single-use plastics.
Moving forward with their comprehensive plan, the government is taking the final steps to meet this commitment, which will begin in December 2022.
The regulation will ban the manufacture and import of any single-use plastic products, including plastic shopping bags, tableware, food and beverage containers, ring trays, stir sticks, straws, etc. The sale of these products will be completely banned by the following year, December 20, 2023.
What is the timeline for the plastic ban?
Disposable plastic items | Manufactured and imported for sale in Canada | Sales | Manufacturing, import and export sales |
Checkout bags, cutlery, straws, cutlery, stirring sticks, straws | December 20, 2022 | December 20, 2023 | December 20, 2025 |
Ring Bracket | June 20, 2023 | June 20, 2024 | December 20, 2025 |
Flexible straws packaged in beverage containers | Not applicable | June 20, 2024 | December 20, 2025 |
Which single-use plastic items are part of the Canadian ban?
The regulations prohibit the production, import and sale of six types of single-use plastic.
Shopping bags, designed to carry merchandise purchased from businesses, are usually provided to customers at retail locations.
Knives, including: knives, forks, spoons, spoon forks, chopsticks
Food service ware designed for serving or transporting ready-to-eat food or beverages and containing: expanded polystyrene foam, extruded polystyrene foam, polyvinyl chloride, carbon black, oxygen-degradable plastic
The following items only: clamshell containers, containers with lids, boxes, cups, plates, bowling balls.
Ring brackets that are flexible and designed to fit around beverage containers in order to carry them together.
Stirring sticks designed to stir or mix beverages, or to prevent beverages from spilling out of the container's lid.
Straws include: straight drinking straws, flexible straws with a corrugated section that allows the straw to bend, packaged with beverage containers (juice boxes and pouches)
