The federal government and Canada’s provinces say they have come up with a plan to gradually harmonize the recycling and reduction of plastic waste.

“For the first time, we now have this national zero plastic action plan to eliminate plastic waste. This is the first phase of it,” Minister of Environment and Climate Change Catherine McKenna said Thursday in a conference call following a meeting with her provincial counterparts in Halifax.

McKenna revealed no details but did say that over time companies will be held responsible of managing and collecting their waste and paying the costs.

A recycling truck delivers blue box material to Ottawa’s recycling facility in 2018. Canada’s environment ministers say they have arrived at a plan to gradually harmonize the recycling and reduction of plastic waste. (CBC/Jennifer Chevalier)

(CBC News reported earlier this month the government would ban single-use plastics as early as 2021.)

Nova Scotia’s environment minister, Gordon Wilson, told reporters the ministers will continue to work on details of the plan and will bring back proposals “for consideration at next year’s meeting.”

Canada currently recycles about nine per cent of the plastic it produces.

British Columbia kept a billion beverage containers out of the landfill in 2017. (CBC)

A recent study prepared for Environment Canada showed that in 2016, Canadians threw out 3.3 million tonnes of plastic.

That’s 12 times more that was recycled.

McKenna calls the figures “abysmal.”

The ministers set December 2020 as the earliest goal for achieving targets, most of which extend to December 2021.