New alliance to maximize innovation, reduce plastics waste in Alberta

  • July 23, 2020
  • 2 minute read
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Photo courtesy the Alberta Plastics Recycling Association

EDMONTON – A new collaboration between government, industry, and academia will help transform and innovate Alberta’s plastics sector by creating a plastics circular economy within the province.

The Plastics Alliance of Alberta will work to ensure that Alberta’s plastics sector creates plastics that can be reused and recycled, generates no waste or emissions, and restores ecosystems harmed by the manufacturing of hard-to-recycle or single-use products.

Alberta is already one of Canada’s largest manufacturing locations of plastics, and presents a huge opportunity for the province’s public and private sector organizations to advocate for innovation in the way plastics are designed, manufactured, and used and re-used in our economy.

The group’s 20 founding member organizations will collaborate on actions needed to encourage and support a plastics circular economy in Alberta. By working together, Alberta will be the voice for change in how the global community thinks about plastics – not as a harmful waste, but as a reusable and recyclable product for a sustainable future.

The alliance will be chaired by NAIT Industry Solutions and co-chaired by the Recycling Council of Alberta.

QUICK FACTS

  • According to the Chemistry Industry Association of Canada, Alberta’s chemistry and plastics industry was valued at $12.1 billion and employed about 58,400 people directly and indirectly in 2019.
  • Canada has a significant opportunity for plastics recycling. A study by Deloitte and Cheminfo Services Inc. found that 3.3 million tonnes of plastic ended up in Canadian landfills in 2016, 12 times the amount of plastic that was recycled.
  • The same report suggested that major changes to recycling in Canada could see 90 per cent of plastics avoid landfills by 2030 through new investments in recycling and changes to government regulation and consumer willpower.

QUOTES

—Deborah Pietrusik, Chair, Plastic Alliance of Alberta; Research and Innovation Consultant – NAIT Industry Solutions

—Christina Seidel, Co-Chair, Plastic Alliance of Alberta; Executive Director, Recycling Council of Alberta

—Sandra Marocco, Vice-President Industry Partnership & Chief Marketing Officer – NAIT

—Hon. Dale Nally, Associate Minister of Natural Gas and Electricity