How long can pop carry  the can in Ontario's blue box?

Ask seasoned blue box watchers how Ontario's recycling programs began and you may hear about the soft drink industry's multi-million dollar pay-off to the Province to ignore the deposit-return quotas.
Others may tell you it was an early demonstration of product stewardship and without it the blue box would never have been the success it is today.
That the program is a success with the public is undeniable. People like it. They feel good. They feel they are doing something.
And while it can be argued that recycling is a drop in the environmental bucket, it did at least open to door to other, much "greener" citizen-based efforts such as water and energy conservation.
It is also undeniable that while the deposit-return system for pop containers is the norm in almost every other part of Canada, in Ontario it is almost a thing of the past.
There is still a strong belief among many that it makes more environmental sense to refill pop containers rather than recycle them - often into other less valuable products. Indeed, there are still resolutions on file somewhere at the Association of Municipalities of Ontario (AMO) office calling for a return to deposit-return. They are probably on the same shelf as the one from Toronto calling for the same system for liquor and wine bottles.
From the taxpayer's point of view, it makes more sense to have the cost of managing the empty container built in to the cost of purchasing the product. Those who have profited quite nicely, thank you very much, from having municipalities carry the can for the consumer habits of our society like to parrot the

old "the consumer and the taxpayer are the same person" line. This, of course, is garbage. Perhaps the cost of gasoline should be on the local taxpayer, too. Or how about potato chips?
The markets for recyclables, like any commodities, are up and down. When they are particularly bad, and thus when the taxpayers are paying even more to support the consumer society, the soft drink industry has often stepped forward with a gesture. The pop guys were  major contributors to the blue box program in the old OMMRI days. There have always been resources made available for promotional efforts, usually through an industry organization. Six years ago, the soft drink industry made a dramatic move, switching from steel to aluminum cans. The makers of pop have claimed to be paying their way in Ontario's recycling program, with some reason - until now.
Now we have the Waste Diversion Organization, with a declared goal to split the net recycling cost 50/50 with industry.  This is a long way from the full product stewardship called for by AMO a few years ago.
The aluminum can has been the only consistent piece of good news in the recycling revenue department, and the pop industry always reminds everyone that it is carrying the other players in the blue box. One of those players now is the PET pop bottle.
At some point, one of two things will happen.
The makers of pop will ask themselves how long they want to carry the other guys, or the increasing use of PET for soft drinks will mean the pop containers themselves become passengers in the blue box and municipal taxpayers will continue to carry the can.
Either way, the ghost of deposit-return will be back, and maybe someone out there will be listening,  next time. 

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