The Federal Government has published the final regulations being put in place to enact a ban on single-use plastics. The ban will include checkout bags; cutlery; foodservice ware made from or containing problematic plastics that are hard to recycle; ring carriers; stir sticks; and plastic straws.

The ban on the manufacture and import of these harmful single-use plastics, barring a few targeted exceptions to recognize specific cases, will come into effect in December 2022. To provide businesses in Canada with enough time to transition and to deplete their existing stocks, the sale of these items will be prohibited as of December 2023. The Government will also prohibit the export of plastics in the six categories by the end of 2025, making Canada the first among peer jurisdictions to do so internationally.

Over the next decade, this ban on single-use plastics will result in the estimated elimination of over 1.3 million tonnes of hard-to-recycle plastic waste and more than 22,000 tonnes of plastic pollution, which is equivalent to over a million garbage bags full of litter.