Trash Talk
Deeper problems in eco-fee debacle?
August 27, 2010
Ellen Moorhouse
SPECIAL TO THE STAR
There is a design principle we all know by the acronym KISS.
Translation: Keep It Simple, Stupid, or Keep It Short and Simple. It apparently originated at an aircraft manufacturer, but might well apply to waste diversion.
The kerfuffle that erupted over new eco-fees introduced in Ontario on July 1 and designed to cover end-of-life disposal for 13 categories of hazardous or “special” products suggests simplification is needed. The fees, now on hold for three months, were so complex that retailers had problems figuring out how to pass the costs up the chain to consumers, or which products to apply fees to (why detergent and compost?).
In fact, Ontario’s entire 2002 Waste Diversion Act is up for an overhaul, following a review published last fall. Perhaps new Environment Minister John Wilkinson, who replaces eco-fee casualty John Gerretsen, should re-evaluate the layered waste diversion administrative structure responsible for the eco-fee debacle, along with the fees themselves.
British Columbia offers a simple, straightforward approach under its Recycling Regulation, which covers a range of post-consumer products from drink containers (mandatory deposits except for milk and milk substitutes) and hazardous household waste.
“It has been referred to as an elegant regulation,” says Brock Macdonald, executive director of the non-profit Recycling Council of B.C., with both corporate and government members. “I believe Maine and some other U.S. states have looked at what we do in B.C. as the way they’re going to build their framework legislation.”
Carl Smith, president of the Rechargeable Battery Recycling Corp. (RBRC) has experienced B.C.’s simplicity and Ontario’s complexity. The not-for-profit industry-funded corporation, which counts 90 per cent of the rechargeable power industry among its licensees, has been building battery recycling programs North-America-wide, starting in Canada in 1997.
On July 1, the RBRC launched, with fanfare, a used battery (both rechargeable and single use) and cellphone collection program in British Columbia.
“We’ve been getting huge bulk shipments of all batteries from B.C. since July 1,” says Smith. “Things have gone very well.”
As Smith explains, B.C. requires product stewards (manufacturers and importers) in selected industries to submit plans for post-consumer disposal of their products. It’s all part of B.C.’s policy of Extended Producer Responsibility, or EPR. The province every couple of years adds a limited number of new waste categories that companies and industries must manage, thereby shifting costs from municipalities.
“They basically say, you battery guys, get together and make it happen or we’ll appoint someone to make it happen,” says Smith. The RBRC, with its existing rechargeable battery collection network, was a ready-made vehicle.
Smith submitted a plan, negotiating directly with B.C.’s environment ministry. He’s also working on similar programs for Manitoba and Quebec.
Negotiating a battery recycling arrangement in Ontario was a lot tougher for RBRC, given the administrative structures. The environment minister directs a non-crown agency it has established, Waste Diversion Ontario (WDO), to develop diversion programs. The WDO in turn sets up and oversees industry funding organizations, like Stewardship Ontario or Ontario Electronic Stewardship, which manage diversion programs and collect fees from producers.
The RBRC tried to get approval from WDO for its existing program but failed. So did the Canadian Wireless Telecommunications Association for its voluntary cellphone collection program, withdrawing its proposal in June, citing lack of progress and the mounting cost of monthly payments it had to remit to WDO for its plan to be evaluated.
In the end, RBRC agreed to become a service provider to Stewardship Ontario, a complex relationship that still has much to resolve. The RBRC will, however, be able to continue its existing rechargeable battery program, to the relief of some of its member battery distributors, who last summer said that onerous fees proposed by Stewardship Ontario would destroy their businesses.
Despite RBRC’s challenging negotiations with Ontario, battery collection targets in B.C. are more ambitious. And costs of programs appear to be lower. The eco-fee on a can of paint up to five litres is 50 cents in B.C. and 81 cents in Ontario; for large pails over five litres, it’s $1.25 in B.C. and $4.03 in Ontario.
Ontario’s review of waste diversion legislation proposes a shift closer to B.C.’s model, with greater responsibility handed to producers and more flexibility with how they attain mandated diversion targets. It also noted that the current framework of WDO and stewardship bodies “could be improved to achieve better results.”
Out in B.C., the Recycling Council’s Macdonald says the logical outcome for the province’s extended producer responsibility is the removal of all consumer-product related waste from your residential garbage can and blue box, leaving municipalities to carry on with organics and yard waste.
“That’s the philosophy,” he says.
Such an outcome, of course, is revolutionary, especially for municipalities, their infrastructure and work forces. Managing even a partial transition in that direction is far more complex for the province than revamping the waste diversion management framework, and it’s on the table with the diversion act review.
Send questions or comments to e_moorhouse@sympatico.ca.