Today, Canadian Tire Corporation (CTC) alongside over 70 leading businesses and organizations, released the most comprehensive and ambitious action plan to reduce plastic waste in Canadian history through the Canada Plastics Pact (“CPP”). Roadmap to 2025: A shared action plan to build a circular economy for plastics packaging (“the Roadmap”) represents unprecedented cross-value chain collaboration, uniting key players behind a shared vision for a circular economy for plastics packaging in Canada and a targeted plan to drive tangible change by 2025.
Leading industry, NGO, and public sector organizations, including brands, retailers, recyclers, resin producers, nonprofits, associations, governments and others who together account for over a third of the plastics packaging on the market in Canada, were engaged during the development of the Roadmap. CTC is committed to collaborating to realize a circular economy for plastics where we eliminate the plastics we don’t need and innovate so the plastics we do need can be reused, recycled or composted to be kept in the economy and out of the environment.
“We’re proud to be leading change through the Canada Plastics Pact and its development of Canada’s first industry-wide action plan to address plastic waste. This cross-value chain collaboration, with a targeted plan to achieve a circular economy for plastics packaging in Canada by 2035, is key to ending the current take-make-waste approach to plastics,” said Robyn Collver, Chief Sustainability Officer, Canadian Tire Corporation. “We’re delighted to see the impact of CPP leadership across the Canadian Tire Corporation group of companies, as our employees seek training, discuss objectives with our value-chain partners, and understand changes needed to achieve the objectives. We congratulate all of our partners in CPP and our employees for their efforts to date and look forward to celebrating many milestones along the journey.”
The Roadmap presents a full picture of what is needed to aggressively advance action and what can be done next to achieve a circular economy for plastics packaging through three strategic priorities for 2025:
- Reduce, reuse, collect: Eliminate unnecessary and hard to recycle plastics. Drive innovation for reuse and refill models. Innovate to prevent waste from being created in the first place. Improve collection and recycling systems.
- Optimize the recycling system: Packaging design standards to improve recyclability. Investments in new infrastructure. Address supply and demand issues to incorporate recycled resins. Ensure government policy is in place and well-designed.
- Use data to improve the whole system: Create standard definitions and measurement practices. Drive investment in better real-time data and monitoring.
“Plastic packaging is a vital part of daily life, it is high-performing, lightweight, and low cost; but currently, over 85% of what we produce in Canada each year gets used once and ends up in landfills or the environment,” says George Roter, Managing Director of the CPP. “By working together we can move faster and have more impact than any one organization could have had acting alone. The Roadmap is designed to comprehensively address this challenge, and sets forth both coordinated individual business actions and the system changes that are needed into a single agenda."
The CPP Roadmap follows the precedents set by other Pacts across the Ellen MacArthur Foundation’s global Plastics Pact Network to bring globally aligned direction and responses to plastic waste and pollution. The Roadmap will accelerate progress towards the CPP’s four 2025 targets for plastics packaging and waste which Partners of the CPP are required to report on annually.
The Roadmap will play a pivotal role in uniting stakeholders for progress towards a circular economy for plastics packaging. CTC looks forward to working alongside CPP Partners and others to drive the collaboration necessary for this critical change.
Media Inquiries:
To arrange an interview with George Roter, Managing Director of the Canada Plastics Pact or a Partner of the CPP, contact:
Nicole Paul
Manager of Communications, Canada Plastics Pact
npaul@plasticspact.ca
778-838-2466
About the Canada Plastics Pact
The Canada Plastics Pact (CPP) is tackling plastic waste and pollution, as a multi-stakeholder, industry-led, cross-value chain collaboration platform. The CPP brings together Partners who are united behind a vision of creating a circular economy in Canada in which plastic waste is kept in the economy and out of the environment. Launched in January 2021, it unites 70+ businesses, government, non-governmental organizations and other key actors in the local plastics value chain behind clear actionable targets for 2025. The CPP is a member of the Ellen MacArthur Foundation’s Global Plastics Pact network. It operates as an independent initiative of The Natural Step Canada, a national charity with over 25 years experience advancing science, innovation and strategic leadership aimed at fostering a strong and inclusive economy that thrives within nature’s limits. Further information: www.plasticspact.ca | @CanadaPact