Canada-wide Plastic Packaging Data Flows: Current Reality & Future Potential Roadmap
Canada lacks the systems-level data and infrastructure needed to take decisive and strategic action to prevent and reduce plastic packaging waste and pollution. Addressing these gaps is critical to achieving a circular economy for plastics.
We need better data and transparency on how plastics flow across waste streams in Canada. With improved data systems, we can track progress more accurately, pinpoint inefficiencies, and show stakeholders where they can play a key role in driving solutions. Right now, Canada faces three major challenges in collecting plastic packaging data:
- data accessibility is limited due to a lack of platforms to effectively collect and transfer normalized data and a lack of willingness among stakeholders to share data,
- data availability is constrained by regulatory gaps, non-compliance, and insufficient resources to collect critical information, and
- data adequacy is compromised by a lack of standardization, making it difficult to integrate and compare datasets.
Concerted action from leaders and experts across the plastics value chain is required to build the systems and infrastructure needed to meet zero plastic waste targets.