The Arctic is “pervasively” polluted by microplastic fibres that most likely come from the washing of synthetic clothes by people in Europe and North America, research has found.
Somewhere in west Texas, amid one of the most productive oilfields in the continent, a Canadian company is building a plant that it hopes will eventually suck from the air a million tonnes of carbon being pumped out of the ground all around it.
The federal government and the provinces are expected to announce plans to work on harmonizing recycling standards following a meeting of environment ministers in Halifax today, June 27, 2019.
Inger Andersen, executive director of the UN Environment Programme, writes on plastic's key role in the global waste crisis and the role industry in the Great Lakes region can play in turning it around.
Environment Minister Catherine McKenna says it is "unfortunate" that a disagreement with the Philippines about Canadian garbage became an international diplomatic incident but she hopes it's created an opportunity for Canada to tackle its plastics-pollution problem.
Canada will not sign on to an amendment to an international treaty that could bar three dozen countries from shipping any kind of garbage, even recyclables, to the developing world.