29 Mar 20
One of the lessons we learned, or relearned, from our experience with the pandemic is the value of single-use plastics. Besides economy and convenience, single use plastics are hygienic. Reusable bags and containers are not.
A new progressive-inspired hobby horse is the banning of single use plastics because they pollute the oceans. To promote this hobby-horse, what is often suppressed is the content and geographic sources of this pollution. It is not widely admitted that a large proportion of the plastics found in the ocean is abandoned fishing gear, and that the greatest sources of ocean pollution are ten rivers that empty into the Pacific and Indian Oceans.
Canada does not, as a practical matter, dispose of its municipal waste into the ocean. If we did, the St. Lawrence River would be the greatest carrier of that pollution, and the Gulf of St. Lawrence would be one of the most polluted bodies of water in the world. But it isn’t.
None of these facts mattered when Prime Minister Trudeau, thoughtless of hygiene, decided upon the policy of banning single use plastics. Canada’s banning of single-use plastics would somehow halt the abandonment of fishing gear and stop the flow of plastics into the Indian and Pacific Oceans. This must be what progressives call “following the science.” Others would call it progressive narcissism.
Hopefully, our experience with this pandemic will cause the Trudeau government to rethink its position on the use of hygienic, single-use plastics.
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