Can anyone explain why the Federal gov't report serving as the primary reference for their plastic ban contains no references that can be accessed by the public?

A funny way to create trust in their decision-making

#bcpoli #canpoli @sjmuir @nbennett_biv

The headline finding in the Draft Science Assessment of Plastic Pollution ( https://www.canada.ca/en/environment-climate-change/services/evaluating-existing-substances/draft-science-assessment-plastic-pollution.html) is:

In Canada, it is estimated that 1% of plastic waste enters the environment, representing 29 000 tonnes of plastic pollution in 2016.

That number is then used to claim that up to 10 000 tonnes of plastic is leaked into the environment in the coastal zones and thus pose a risk to the oceans. Which they need to enact a plastic ban....so where do those numbers come from? #bcpoli #cdnpoli

From this doc:

Economic Study of the Canadian Plastic Industry, Markets and Waste ( http://publications.gc.ca/collections/collection_2019/eccc/En4-366-1-2019-eng.pdf)

With this quote:

"the authors estimated that approximately 10,000 tonnes of plastic waste were mismanaged in coastal areas and nearly 29,000 tonnes across Canada"

Where does this number come from?

Why this report:

"Deloitte. (2019a). Economic study of the Canadian plastic industry, markets and waste-Task 1.Government of Canada, Environment and Climate Change Canada Internal Report."

i.e. it is a report the public is not allowed to see

This entire policy is built on a secret document that is not publicly available by reviewers or scientific authorities. We are just supposed to trust this...so should we do so?

Well let's look at the rest of that quote:

"his second fraction, also called plastics leaked into the environment (LEAK) is estimated in the model. Global estimates of plastic leakage into the environment were prepared by Jambeck et al. in 2015. "

Now Jambeck et al. is here: https://science.sciencemag.org/content/347/6223/768

Funny thing about the Jambeck report, it assumes that US leakage is about 1% which is the value they decide to use with respect to Canada...because Canada and the US are essentially the same aren't they?

But of course they are not....

The US has a massive coastal population with most of their major cities on the coast....does that sound anything like Canada?

Very little of Canada's population lives on a coast. Our biggest cities (except Vancouver) are inland. We are not in the least comparable. #canpoli

This is simply another example of researchers looking at the US and imagining we are simply the same as them. Except we aren't. As I wrote in a blog post on the topic in 2018 waste plastic in Calgary simply is not going to end up in an ocean... #bcpoli #abpoli

Any politician relying on the Environment Canada draft report should demand access to the private information used to create the policy. Public policy needs to rely on publicly available information so it can be effectively reviewed by outside experts.