Kathleen Ruff

The mountains of trash from foreign countries seen piling up around homes and temples in Myanmar are renewing calls for Canada and other wealthy countries to deal with their own plastic garbage at home, instead of exporting waste — and the problem — to the developing world.

In the year since new rules to slow global exports of plastic waste took effect, Canada's shipments rose by more than 13 per cent, and most of it is going to the United States with no knowledge of where it ultimately ends up.

One of the difficulties of trying to stop fossil fuel production in Canada is many groups soft-pedal the real problem — the end use of the product, writes Ross Belot.

Environment Minister Catherine McKenna says she has asked her department to look at what else Canada can do to reduce the amount of Canadian garbage that is ending up overseas.