Canada Says No to Single-Use Plastics

The Canadian Prime Minister, Justin Trudeau, is making a stand against single-use plastic.  By 2021, Candada will ban bags, straws, cutlery, stirring sticks and other single-use plastics per an article on CNN.com.

Roughly 1 million birds and more than 100,000 sea mammals worldwide are injured or die when consume plastic mistakenly (according to the Canadian government.  Catherine McKenna, the country's Minister of Environment and Climate Change, commented that it is time to act.  "We've all seen the disturbing images of fish, sea turtles, whales, and other wildlife being injured or dying because of plastic garbage in our oceans," she said.

The government plans to work with companies to set goals/targets on their waste production as part of their overall plan.

Justin Trudeau added, "Less than 10 per cent of plastic used in Canada gets recycled. Without a change in course, Canadians will throw away an estimated $11 billion worth of plastic materials each year by 2030."