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by Jay Arthur
Ever since people have been trying to get producers and their consumers to contribute towards the cost of managing their packaging, the old "efficiency" argument has been the stock response.
Industry should not have to pay for the inefficiencies of municipal recycling programs, was how the song went.
It was a convenient way of pushing the issue of responsibility to the back burner. Then you threw a few bucks at studies to improve efficiency and you could delay the day you have pay real dollars a little longer.
The setting up of the Waste Diversion Organization in Ontario in 1999 was a classic example. After the Ontario Liquor Board (i.e., the Ontario taxpayers) had kicked in its two-year commitment of $9 million, industry had to raise $4.5 million. That was a lot more than it had put into the kitty in the past, but it put off the big dollar day for more than three years. Heck, they saved about $70 million! And their lobby organization, CSR, proving its worth by successfully lobbying to be the WDO secretariat, received lots of money in administrative fees, too.
When the latest round of stewardship discussions began a few years back, there was a lot of talk about how payments would be linked to efficiencies.
Bearing in mind that most municipal recycling programs contract out their collection and processing to the private sector, one can only conclude that if there is inefficiency it must be in the system itself.
Now that some people (PPSReview included, I note) are once again reminding everyone that there is another way of getting the job done, producers tell us that their industry-operated deposit return system is inefficient and the blue box is actually the way to go.
What appears to be coming down the pipe from the WDO process are payments geared primarily to population density, geography and recovery rates. Where is efficiency?
If we go along with the Ontario Government's claim that environmental protection is the ultimate goal here, then recovery rates should indeed play a high role in the equation.
I think industry is just being modest. They are actually
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doing a fine job with their collection system. The numbers speak for themselves.
Industry-run deposit-return programs here in British Columbia and in other provinces have significantly higher recovery rates than curbside recycling for soft drinks and liquor bottles.
So, at the very least, let industry look after the recovery programs for the other materials coming to Ontario. And let industry look after their administration, too.
The current Ontario set-up anticipates separate industry funding organizations (IFOs) for each material, each with its own bureaucracy.
Where is the province's Red Tape Commission when you need it?
I do hear however that with the setting up of Stewardship Ontario, CSR may be looking to be everyone's IFO. Imagine the administrative fees!
Do you really need so much bureaucracy? Chris Stockwell doesn't.
Even after having the energy ministry and its hydro nightmare passed on to a different ministry (just in time, as it turned out), the minister still has the Ghosts of Walkerton Past, Present and Future looming.
So he'll be busy coming up with something positive to say on the environment front when the election is called next spring.
It is hoped he will be able to announce the arrival of cheques to offset blue box costs. But wouldn't it be great if he could add to the good news with stewardship plans for other materials? There are no shortage of models out there.
Mr. Stockwell could send little notes to the tire guys, the HHW guys and the oil guys, and ask to see a stewardship plan from each of them under his tree.
Given industry's natural tendency towards efficiency, there is absolutely no reason why they couldn't deliver the commitment by Christmas, and the program by the summer.
It's not as if they didn't know this was coming. To suggest anything else would indicate inefficiency. And that would not be appropriate.
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