Every day, an awful lot of huge trucks carrying garbage head west
on the 401 to Michigan. The fact that this is happening and the amount
of trash on the move is a sorry indictment of Ontario's utter failure
to address its waste management file.
Landfills in the States have been offering sweet deals to Ontario
waste generators for some time, so there is nothing new about the
export of refuse to the United States. Canada and its neighbour to
the south enjoy a huge degree of trade. Regular garbage has been shipped
from Ontario to the U.S. for years and hazardous waste has been shipped
from the U.S. to Ontario. Since it was first announced that the Keele
Valley Landfill was eventually going to close, the spectre of Toronto's
waste (plus Peel's and Durham's) wandering the land in search of a
home has been "on the radar". But it is only since Keele
Valley actually did close last December---and the volume of garbage
on the road increased---that the issue has been making the headlines
on a regular basis.
There had been efforts in the early 1990s to deal with our waste disposal
problem locally. A number of potential disposal sites were found through
the Interim Waste Authority (IWA) process, all located in the Greater
Toronto area. Of course, no one wants a landfill in their backyard
and it was a very hot political potato, just as it was in many other
Ontario communities where municipalities were planning for waste disposal
capacity. Indeed it was the urgency of the problem that drove much
of the waste diversion activity.
(It also prompted a proposal from a private consortium to ship garbage
to northern Ontario and dump it into a water-filled mine site near
Kirkland Lake, despite the fears of the neighbours. Although rejected
by the City of Toronto, the Adams Mine option sits in the background
like an 800-pound gorilla, waiting patiently.)
The Interim Waste Authority process was abandoned with the change
of government in 1995. With the notion of managing waste locally no
longer a provincial policy, ambassadors for Michigan and other US
landfill operators came a-calling to public and private waste generators
in Ontario municipalities. Not only did the low prices offered by
U.S. landfills provide a politically-easy solution to garbage problems
for those without disposal facilities, they also had a major impact
on those who did have landfill capacity. The private waste haulers,
whose payment of tipping fees had been a mainstay for many municipal
waste programs in Ontario, took their loads to the U.S. In response,
Keele Valley and other landfills in the province lowered their tipping
fees to remain competitive. Keele Valley's tipping fee, which had
been $150 per tonne, fell steadily, ending up at $50 per tonne. With
tipping fees so low the primary waste reduction incentive---cost---was
gone. It suddenly became cheaper not to reduce, reuse and recycle.
And all those fledgling industries with new technologies to pay for,
which had been able to charge a tipping fee to accept materials as
long as they were cheaper than landfill, went the way of the dodo
as the garbage headed for the border.
In recent years, there have been occasional grumblings about the
increased traffic on the 401 but more recently a couple of things
have raised the issue's profile. There has been some political pressure
by mayors in the 401 corridor. And in Michigan itself, activists have
been vociferously opposed to taking Toronto's garbage. All this came
to a head in February when two trucks were stopped at the US border.
One was reportedly "leaking blood" and another failed a
radioactivity test (because of drug traces in sanitary fibre waste).
The fact that one of these trucks was a private hauler did not slow
the media frenzy. Not since the notorious 1980s case when an orphan
garbage barge spent months plying the waters of the east coast of
the United States desparately looking for a place to dump its filth
has our inability to address waste management issues been so well
and publicly demonstrated.
For the past 15 years or so, curbside recycling has been diverting
printed papers and packaging from landfill and much has been made
about the program. Although "a drop in the blue box" as
a diversion tool in the overall scheme of things, the program has
opened the door to public participation in backyard composting and
other environmental programs aimed at reducing our impact on the planet.
The blue box was partially supported in its early days by industry
as well as local and provincial taxpayers. The theory was that the
revenues from the sale of recovered materials would cover the costs.
It never happened. While old newspapers have generally covered their
individual collection and processing costs, and aluminum cans actually
make money, none of the other materials comes close to breaking even.
It should be noted however that there are avoided landfill disposal
costs, and the higher the disposal cost, the bigger the "saving"
realized from diverting waste. Industry has never contributed to the
cost of landfilling, and any "stewardship" discussions have
only talked about what is recovered via recycling programs (hence
the "scare" quote marks).
Industry's role in supporting the blue box was primarily financed
by the soft drink industry. The formation of Ontario Multi-Material
Recycling Incorporated (OMMRI) was part of a deal worked out between
the industry and the provincial government which saw the abandonment
of legislation promoting the return and refilling of pop bottles.
The legislation is still on the books, but the minimum percentage
of bottles required to be refilled has been lowered, and since been
ignored. Strictly speaking, the soft drink companies have been in
breach of the legislation for years, but the Province has turned a
blind eye---even when Toronto environmental activist Gord Perks brought
a private prosecution against Coca Cola. That matter is before the
Supreme Court and has been there a long time. (Obviously, dealing
with this issue is not seen as a priority.) In a few short years after
the blue box was launched, soft drink production was centralized,
the containers of choice became recyclable cans and plastic bottles
and local bottling plants became a thing of the past. The recovery
of empty pop containers has never come close to the deposit return
days. All other provinces except Manitoba held on to their deposit
programs and continue to enjoy return rates of 80 per cent or better.
Ontario's blue box recovers less than 40% of pop containers, although
it does a lot better on fibres - newspapers enjoy a 70% recovery.
On taking power in 1995, the Tories withdrew all provincial support
from recycling programs and Ontario's blue box has since been funded
entirely through local taxes. Last year, Bill 90 was passed in the
Ontario Legislature and became The Waste Diversion Act . While it
gave a much-needed lift to the prospects of Ontario recycling programs,
there are still big questions in some people's minds about the way
the funding system will be set up and the basis on which the "stewardship"
responsibilities of brand owners is founded . The Act paved the way
for the establishment of Waste Diversion Ontario (WDO), a multi-stakeholder
organization with a mandate to implement waste diversion programs
in Ontario. Shortly afterwards, following the protocol laid out by
the Act, Ontario's minister of environment Chris Stockwell "designated"
recyclable printed material and packaging as "blue box wastes"
and wrote to the new WDO board of directors, requiring the creation
of an industry funding organization (IFO) to pay 50 per cent of the
net cost of Ontario's residential recycling program. (The rest will
continue to be paid by the municipalities). While the framework and
bureaucracy which will be set up by the Act is new, the players are
not. The IFO set up to monitor blue box funding is Stewardship Ontario.
This is a virtual organization, staffed by Corporations Supporting
Recycling (CSR), an industry association that has represented the
interests of brand owners of consumer goods since the early 1990s.
CSR evolved from OMMRI. There have been previous attempts to get the
brand owner (and thus the consumer) to contribute towards the blue
box costs. In the mid-1990s the Canadian Industry Product Stewardship
Initiative (CIPSI) would have seen industry/consumers pay one third
of the gross cost of recycling, with one third covered by revenues
from the sale of recyclable materials and one third borne by the taxpayer.
This amounted to about 50% of the net cost of the program (i.e. gross
costs less revenues), which in those days meant a $65.00 per tonne
contribution. At the time, the Association of Municipalities of Ontario
(AMO) rejected the offer, calling for full product stewardship of
recycling programs (i.e. 100% funding).
In 2003, having carried the blue box recycling program entirely on
their own for eight years, municipalities did not argue about whether
half is enough when Bill 90 was introduced. After years of downloading
from the Province, they were grateful for 50-cent dollars and are
now looking forward later this year to seeing cheques on their respective
doormats. What this works out to per program varies as there are different
factors determining how much each municipality will receive, but overall
it should work out to about $40 per tonne. If all goes according to
plan, municipalities can look forward to support for other waste diversion
programs, too. The minister has already added waste oil and tires
to the designated list and stewardship programs are expected to be
in place this fall or winter. And if the Province responds to other
submissions made by AMO, households hazardous waste (HHW) programs
will be the next on the list for funding. All this could change of
course if an election is called. This long-overdue support opens the
door for a reappraisal of our waste diversion programs, and gives
program operators some breathing space to step back and look at the
big picture---to think, so to speak---outside of the (blue) box. For
some, this has meant reviewing the system itself, not just how individuals
materials are handled. Toronto, for example, is moving to a single-stream
recycling program, through which savings on the collection side outweigh
the extra sorting costs at the recycling plant. This is certainly
the experience in the United States and we shall soon find out how
the system works here in Ontario. Many have their doubts. Ontario
programs are more advanced and collect more materials than their neighbours
to the south do and many will be watching the Toronto experience.
In other areas, notably Guelph and Northumberland County, the traditional
blue box has long since been replaced by a wet/dry collection system.
When the 50% diversion from disposal goal was established in 1989,
reaching 25% by 1992 seemed easy (and we met that goal) and to reach
50% by 2000 looked easy, too. But we are not even close. We have been
languishing in the 30s while some other provinces have surpassed the
50% mark. If we are going to get anywhere, we have to address the
organics in the waste stream, which will involve a lot of cost. In
addition, questions remain about who will pay, and the new legislation
does not provide easy answers. But whatever may happen with organics,
we also need to do a much better job on recovering packaging. While
our traditional curbside system does fairly well at collecting newspapers
and aluminum cans from single family homes (if not from apartments),
recent studies have shown we are barely getting a third of the plastic
bottles and other containers. A United States research team led by
consultant R.W. Beck Inc. concludes (in "Understanding Beverage
Container Recovery") that in the 10 U.S. states where deposit-return
legislation exists, three quarters of containers are recovered for
recycling, while fewer than 20 per cent are recovered in those states
where no such legislation is in place. In most Canadian provinces
with deposit-return, recovery parallels the success of the U.S. high
performers, while those who rely on curbside recycling (Ontario and
Manitoba) report recovery rates of 41 and 31 per cent, respectively
("An Analysis of the Costs and Benefits of Beverage Containers
Recovery in Canada", CM Consulting, 2002). (Both reports also
question the notion that deposit-return systems are more expensive
than curbside container recovery.) In those communities with large
multi-residential sectors, like Toronto, the per-household recovery
rate is dragged down by the very poor recycling performance of apartments
buildings, which cannot offer the convenience of door-to-door collection.
When people have to cart their empty bottles and cans down to the
utility room, a lot of those recyclables find their way into the garbage
stream. The same goes for containers consumed outside the home (mainly
beverages). The facilities are either hard to find or so badly contaminated
that is not worth anyone's while to sort them. They, too, often end
up in the garbage stream.
To compound the frustration for Ontario program operators, they are
force to continually look for markets for coloured glass and non-bottle
plastics. When they do find them they are invariably a lower-grade
use of the material (glass bottles become aggregate substitute; plastic
tubs become plastic wood; plastic film is shipped to Asia and its
fate is uncertain). It may be heresy to suggest there is a better
way to manage some of these materials, given the justifiable pride
Ontario feels about its blue box program, but there can be no arguments
with the facts and figures. In addition, the majority of municipalities
in this province are officially on record supporting the deposit-return
concept. Government should feel itself obliged to pursue the most
efficient services for its taxpayers. And with the Waste Diversion
Act, there is an opportunity to do just that.
The previous battling on this issue was always based on the pre-supposition
that any change meant the producer/consumer would have to foot the
bill and municipalities would not pay. Hence there has been strident
opposition from industry. If a government amassed enough political
will-power to overcome that obstacle, however, some energy and resources
should be spent on developing an efficient take-back system that would
work in tandem with our existing curbside program (as it does in other
provinces). This integrated approach to waste management would then
free up collection and processing infrastructure so that other materials
might be handled. With producers/consumers poised to pay a share of
the costs of recovering these materials, it is very much in their
interest that we choose the most efficient system. Taxpayers should
demand nothing less, either. Ontario's environment minister Chris
Stockwell is on record as being a strong advocate of alternative collection
systems and appears to more open to new ideas than his predecessors,
as does his boss, Premier Eves.
Unfortunately, provincial governments in Ontario do not have a particularly
impressive record on the waste management file. The blue box was a
very important step in getting the 3Rs on the average person's radar
screen, but the deal with industry was misguided at best, and consecutive
administrations have all failed to build on the momentum. The New
Democrats made a game attempt to address disposal and diversion issues
head on but were hamstrung by a failing economy. The Tories have been
an absolute disaster. They bought votes in the 905 area by killing
efforts to deal with the landfill crisis locally and set off a chain
of events that doomed diversion initiatives just as they were starting
to pick up speed. And to add insult to injury they removed funding
for 3Rs programs while downloading more responsibilities to municipalities.With
an election imminent and an appalling environmental record, the latest
blue box (partial) funding plan is a step in the right direction,
but there is a long, long way yet to go.
Ben Bennett is the publisher of "Product &
Packaging Stewardship Review", an email/fax newsletter
sent to municipalities six times a year. For more information, visit
his website (www.productstewardship.org).
He also edits a recycling magazine and has been involved in municipal
waste management in various capacities for 13 years.
Issue
1, Volume 1