Researchers tally scale of city's plastic pollution

Study finds microplastic waste comes from unlikely sources

- PATTY WINSA

Toronto spews out nearly 4,000 tonnes of plastic annually into the environment in the form of litter and microplastics from sources such as artificial turf and house paint, according to new research from the University of Toronto.

But the city doesn't measure the amount of plastic that leaks into our parks, rivers and air, potentially choking marine environments and breaking down into toxic microplastics, despite a global plastic pollution crisis.

Researchers say we should be monitoring plastic waste the way we monitor carbon emissions. And they've come up with a tool to do just that have global implications for benchmarking plastic emissions and setting reduction targets.

one they believe could "For plastic, I think that countries should be mandated to report national emissions inventories to an international body like the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change," said Alice (Xia) Zhu.

Zhu, a PhD candidate at U of T, is one of the authors of a study that measured Toronto's plastic waste using a framework the authors believe could be scaled up and used in cities and countries around the world.

The convention on climate change, which came into effect in Canada in 1994, requires industrialized countries that ratified the UN agreement to report greenhouse gas emissions annually as well as their climate change policies and measures.

Toronto already tracks greenhouse gas emissions as part of its commitment to address climate change.

"It's absolutely necessary for someone to do this" for plastic, said Zhu, who co-wrote the study with Chelsea Rochman, a professor of ecology and evolutionary biology at U of T, and Matthew Hoffmann, a political science professor at the university and co-director of the Environmental Governance Lab.