The Province has created CleanBC, a plan aimed at reducing climate pollution while creating more jobs and economic opportunities for people, businesses, and communities. A sub-component of that plan, the Plastics Action Plan, aims to reduce single-use plastic in British Columbia and focuses on four key outcomes:

• Determining which types of plastic packaging to phase out altogether, as well as any necessary exemptions, such as those for health, safety, and accessibility to keep products available for the people that need them
• Requiring producers to take responsibility for more plastic products, ensuring more single-use items like sandwich bags, straws and cutlery get recycled
• Expanding the deposit-refund system to cover all beverage containers — including milk and milk substitutes — with a 10-cent refundable deposit, keeping millions of containers out of landfills and waterways and
• Supporting effective ways to prevent plastic waste in the first place and ensuring recycled plastic is re-used effectively.

The declaration of a climate emergency by many municipalities has propelled the development of bylaws that seek to ban or reduce single-use items— most commonly by 2020. The federal government is also seeking to expand its efforts to reduce plastic and strengthen Canada’s Environmental Protection Act.