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How Beach Cleanup Data Helped Canada Ban Plastic · How To Protect The Ocean

• 0:00
  Now picture this.
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  You rinsed your yogurt tub.
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  You check the little number at the bottom, you put it in the
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  blue bin and hope for the best.
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  But then a lot of it doesn't get recycled.
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  And yet one of the biggest legal wins against plastic in Canada started with
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  people doing something even simpler than recycling: picking up trash on a
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  beach and writing down what they found.
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  And we're gonna talk about this fight on this episode of the How
• 0:24
  to Protect the Ocean podcast.
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  I'm your host, Andrew Lewin.
• 0:26
  I am a marine biologist and science communicator here to tell you all
• 0:30
  about what's happening in the ocean.
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  This week, we are focusing on marine pollution.
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  On Monday, I did a great interview with Judith Weis on the second edition
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  of her book called Marine Pollution.
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  Just a cool fact, she was my first interview on this podcast,
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  and more than 2,000 episodes later, she is interviewing again.
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  We interviewed for the first edition of the book on the first day, and
• 0:50
  we are doing it for the second day now, so which is kinda cool.
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  I really appreciate her for coming on.
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  But we're talking all about marine pollution, all different facts.
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  Like, we talked about how the harbor in New York City got
• 1:00
  cleaned up on the Tuesday.
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  We talked yesterday about how we're actually able to get pharmaceuticals
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  out of the water if we just put the money into our treatment plants.
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  And today we're gonna be talking about plastic, because let's be honest,
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  you can do everything right, put everything in the blue bin, then all
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  of a sudden you read the headline about how there's so much plastic in
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  the ocean, in the fish, and even us, in people, in our lungs, in our blood.
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  It's in the air.
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  It's everywhere, and it can feel like your effort, like, disappears
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  into a system that just doesn't really work in all honesty.
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  And I hate to say it, the system, the whole blue bin thing,
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  was a fossil fuel invention.
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  And so no wonder it doesn't work that well.
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  It's just a way to distract you from what is actually happening, because the fossil
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  fuel industry makes 30% of their funds, of their revenue, from making plastic.
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  so this episode, I'm gonna be honest about what isn't working, and I'm gonna
• 1:48
  end with what actually is working.
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  Now, I've covered plastic on the show for years, and this is the first time
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  I've actually felt the legal ground shift under it in a way that lasts.
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  Now, as I mentioned, we talked about New York Harbor and
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  how that problem was fixed.
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  Yesterday we talked about, Switzerland and what they're doing to upgrade their
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  plants to get hormones out of the water.
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  But plastic is different.
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  It comes from everywhere: bags blowing off a truck, tires wearing down, clothes
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  in the wash, litter in the parking lot.
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  It's really difficult to kinda get your head around everything that happens.
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  You can't build one plant to catch it.
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  That's why this one, the plastic, needs a different kind of fix.
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  So let's talk about the thing that most of us really think is solving the problem.
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  That's recycling.
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  Now here's a number that surprises almost everyone: 9%, just 9%.
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  A few years ago, the federal government hired Deloitte to study
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  where Canada's plastic actually goes.
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  The answer?
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  Using 2016 data, of about 3.2 million tons of plastic Canadians threw away
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  of that year, only 9% was recycled.
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  86% went to the landfill, and about 29,000 tons, roughly 1%, ended up as
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  litter in parks, in rivers, in lakes, and of course, eventually the ocean.
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  The global picture looks almost the same.
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  Organizations found that the world's plastic waste doubled between 2000
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  and 2019 to 353 million tons a year.
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  9% recycled, half goes to landfill, about a fifth incinerated, and 22%
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  mismanaged, which is the polite way of saying it escaped into the
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  environment and got into our oceans.
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  So why is recycling so hard?
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  ' Cause plastic isn't one material.
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  It's polyethylene, polypropylene, polystyrene, PET, PVC, all the
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  Ps. each one melts differently and has to be handled separately.
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  Then there are the colors, and the dyes, and the additives, and the labels,
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  and the food stuck to the inside.
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  Mix them together and you get something that nobody really wants to buy.
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  That's what it really is.
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  It's all about who can buy the recycling material.
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  That's why so much of what goes in the blue bin never becomes anything new.
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  It's also why people who study plastic keep saying the same
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  thing over and over again.
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  We can't recycle our way out of this.
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  We have to make less of it.
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  Recycling still plays a part, but it's not gonna carry the entire load.
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  Now here's what happens to plastic that doesn't get recycled.
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  It doesn't go away, it doesn't, like, break apart.
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  there are, like, pieces five millimeters or smaller, most
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  of them are too small to see.
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  These are microplastics.
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  They've been found in seawater, sea ice, fish, shellfish, table salt, rain, air.
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  And scientists that study microplastics have this problem that a lot of
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  other researchers don't face.
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  They can't find anything clean.
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  Like, there's no reference material.
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  A good e-experiment needs a control, something that hasn't
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  been exposed so you can compare.
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  But microplastics are in the air of the lab.
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  They settle out, of the ventilation.
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  They shed from lab coats and plastic equipment.
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  Some labs now work in ultra-clean rooms just to get a reading they can trust.
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  And in February 2025, a team led by researchers at the University
• 5:03
  of New Mexico published a study in Nature Medicine that made
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  headlines around the world.
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  They measured plastic in 91 human brain samples, from people
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  who died between 1997 and 2024.
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  They reported that the median amount of plastic in the brain rose by
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  about 50% between 2016 and 2024.
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  50%. The media ran with the idea that we each have a spoonful
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  of plastics in our heads.
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  Then other scientists took a closer look.
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  Within weeks, people spotted duplicated images in the paper's supplementary
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  material, which the lead researcher called a clerical mistake that
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  didn't change the conclusions.
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  So by January 2026, independent research has had formally challenged
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  seven high-profile studies on microplastics in the human body,
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  including the brain study, and flagged methodological concerns with more.
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  One big worry, the brain is about 60% fat, and fat can produce a false
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  signal that looks like polyethylene in one of the main testing methods.
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  So where does that leave us?
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  Sounds like a big controversy.
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  Scientists on both sides agree on the core fact: plastic pollution
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  is everywhere in the environment.
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  What we honestly don't know yet is exactly how much ends up
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  inside us and what it does there.
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  We know it's in us.
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  We just don't know how much.
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  It's hard to tell.
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  And this is the frustrating part, the science is hard because
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  plastic is everywhere, and that's problem is proving itself.
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  Waiting for perfect proof means waiting forever.
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  Canada decided, you know what?
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  We didn't have to.
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  So how do you act when the science is this hard to pin down?
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  In Canada, it started on the beach.
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  In 1994, staff and volunteers at the Vancouver Aquarium decided to
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  clean up a beach in Stanley Park.
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  By 1997, it had grown to 400 volunteers at 20 sites.
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  In 2002, it went to national with WWF-Canada as the Great
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  Canadian Shoreline Clean-up.
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  Today, it runs as the Ocean Wise Shoreline Clean-up.
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  Along the way, the volunteers did something that turned out to matter a lot.
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  They picked up the trash and they started counting it.
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  Every bag, every bottle cap, every straw, recorded as data and shared
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  with researchers and policymakers.
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  By 2020, volunteers had organized more than 21,000 cleanups across the
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  country on ocean coasts, lake shores, riverbeds, And year after year, the same
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  kind of items kept topping their list.
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  In 2018, seven of the ten most common items they found were, guess what?
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  Plastic.
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  In October 2020, the federal government released its science
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  assessment of plastic pollution.
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  It pulled together hundreds of studies, and it drew on
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  that shoreline data as well.
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  Its conclusion was clear on the big pieces.
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  Plastic litter harms wildlife through entanglement and
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  ingestion, leading to suffocation, strangulation, and starvation.
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  On microplastics, it said the evidence was still developing, and then
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  it said the most important thing, that action is needed now under the
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  precautionary principle to reduce both.
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  We're not gonna wait until it's too late.
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  We're gonna do this now.
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  In 2021, the government added plastic manufactured items to the list of
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  toxic substances under the Canadian Environmental Protection Act.
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  That listing gave it the legal power to regulate plastic.
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  Its first move was a ban on six single-use items: checkout bags, cutlery, certain
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  food service containers, six-pack rings, stir sticks, and straws.
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  Now look at that list again.
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  Those are the same items volunteers have been pulling off Canadian
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  shorelines and writing down for decades.
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  If you really look at this, you see that people, people who participate
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  in the shoreline helped contribute to this new ban on plastics.
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  It's huge.
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  It was a huge thing that happened, and it empowered people to stand up and
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  say, "Hey, this is what we're finding on our beaches, on our shorelines,
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  on our riverbeds, on our lakebeds, and this is what we're gonna get
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  rid of 'cause we don't want it."
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  And the government listened, and it was great.
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  But then we had a problem.
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  A coalition of plastics producers and industry groups
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  took the government to court.
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  They argued that plastic manufactured items was far too broad to count
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  as a single toxic substance, and that the government didn't
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  have the evidence to back it up.
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  In November 2023, the federal court agreed with them.
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  The judge ruled the listing was unreasonable and unconstitutional.
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  For a moment, it looked like the foundation under Canada's
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  plastic rules might collapse.
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  And to be honest, it wasn't about the six plastics that were banned.
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  It was about all the rest of the things that could happen based on
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  that plastics are toxic to humans.
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  But then the government appealed, and while the appeal played out, the ruling
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  was put on hold, so the ban on those six items stayed in place the whole time.
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  And to be honest, I saw those items disappear and for the most part.
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  Straws, it was still questionable, but a lot of people went to paper straws.
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  I know, people don't like paper straws, but it's better than having
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  plastic straws unless you need it.
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  There's always that option.
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  Now, on January 30th, 2026, the Federal Court of Appeal overturned the decision.
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  And its reasoning is worth hearing.
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  It said plastic manufactured items do qualify as a substance under the law.
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  It said the government had enough evidence to reasonably conclude that plastic can
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  cause harm, and it said the government didn't need to test every individual
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  type of plastic one by one before acting.
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  So basically, the court accepted that you don't need the perfect proof to
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  protect the environment from something this widespread, so the listing stands.
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  Now, the Industry Coalition has asked the Supreme Court of Canada to hear
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  the case, and as I record this, the court hasn't decided whether it will.
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  Either way, the ban stays in effect.
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  So what does that win actually get us?
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  First, the ban itself.
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  The government projected that banning those six items would keep about
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  1.3 million tons of hard to recycle plastic out of the waste stream over
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  the next 10 years, and prevent about 22,000 tons of plastic pollution.
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  Now second, something a little bigger, Canada created the
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  Federal Plastics Registry.
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  Companies that make, import, or sell plastic packaging, electronics, and single
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  use products now have to report how much they put on the Canadian market, what
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  kind of plastic it is, and what happens to it at the end of its life: recycled,
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  maybe composted, burned, or buried.
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  For the first time ever, a country is tracking plastic from the factory to
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  the landfill Now for the honest part.
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  Not everything was held.
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  In late 2025, the government proposed dropping its plan to ban the export
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  of those six single-use items, citing trade pressure and the economy.
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  And the later phases of the registry, which would have covered
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  more products, has been postponed.
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  So we're not out of the woods yet, but the foundation is still there.
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  The listing survived its first court fight.
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  the domestic ban is in place, and the registry is collecting data every year.
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  You can't reduce what you can't measure, and Canada is finally measuring.
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  Now this is the piece New York Harbor had and Plastic never did.
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  A way to see where the problem comes from.
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  So when we start looking at all this, if you don't live in Canada, that's fine.
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  it's a great country, but it's fine.
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  I get it.
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  Not everybody can live in Canada.
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  But the thing is, is whether you live in Canada or not, you can join a shoreline
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  cleanup that records what it finds.
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  A lot of the organizations that participate in this records it, or you can
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  record it and send it to somebody, like an organization that will take your data.
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  Now, in Canada, the Ocean Wise Shoreline Cleanup, formerly the Great
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  Canadian Shoreline Cleanup, lets you join one or start your own at
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  any beach, lakeshore, or riverbed.
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  Outside Canada, of course, you can look for Ocean Conservancy's International
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  Coastal Cleanup or a local group that logs this data, just like I said.
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  Now, the data card is the point, Your tally goes to the same kind of dataset
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  that helped build Canada's case.
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  And I always think when you come to help the shoreline, you stay for the people.
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  You, come for the impact, but you stay for the community.
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  You don't wanna start saying, "Hey, we should ban plastic straws," and just
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  see all the people come out, the bots and everything, to say, "Hey, we love
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  plastic straws," and this and that, for the people who don't really need it.
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  And there are people who do.
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  Now I just wanna, think about this.
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  Like, picture a volunteer on a beach in 1994, writing straw just on a data card.
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  30 years later, that same item is banned across the country, and a federal
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  appeal court has confirmed that the government can regulate plastic as toxic.
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  Plastic is still the hardest pollutant in the series, we now have the legal
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  tools, the data, and the registry to start turning off the tap.
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  Somebody recently said it, plastic is really just solidified oil, 'cause
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  it's a petroleum product, so the next time you pick up a piece of plastic
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  on a beach, write it down, because it counts, and your effort counts.
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  And I think that's, not only does it help yourself, but it helps your
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  government, it helps the scientists, it helps policymakers to really
• 13:45
  understand how you can get rid of plastic and make a case to ban plastic.
• 13:51
  I'd really love to hear your thoughts on your efforts to clean up plastic.
• 13:54
  It's great to hear everybody's efforts and their motivation of why they wanna do
• 13:58
  things, whether it's to just get outside and do something, whether it's to clean up
• 14:02
  your local beach or riverbed or lakeside, or you just wanna be with a community
• 14:07
  that thinks the same way you do in person.
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  There's nothing wrong with that.
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  We are in like a lonely pandemic, and we need to get out and see people and be
• 14:15
  with people that have something in common.
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  And those people who wanna protect the shoreline, who wanna protect the planet,
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  they have a lot in common with you guys.
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  So I wanna thank you so much for joining me on today's episode of the
• 14:27
  How to Protect the Ocean podcast, and I'd love to hear from you.
• 14:30
  If you are on Spotify and you're listening to this, they have a comment section.
• 14:33
  Let me hear you talk about what you wanna talk about in the comments, whether you
• 14:37
  all wanna talk about this episode or you wanna comment on something else, or
• 14:41
  you can just hit me up on my socials.
• 14:43
  The links are in the show notes.
• 14:45
  Thank you so much for joining me on today's episode of the How
• 14:47
  to Protect the Ocean podcast.
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  I'm your host, Andrew Lewin.
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  Have a great day.
• 14:50
  We'll talk to you next time, and happy conservation.