How the mighty have fallen and the arrogant have been chastened

By Jay Arthur

Well, I've said it before and I'll say it again. Knock me down with a feather!
Deposits at the LCBO. Good heavens, what next? You can almost hear the panic in the boardrooms at Coke and Pepsi, although it's almost drowned out by the singing and dancing in the streets by the recycling plant operators and the paper mills.
I'm sure a lot of people were amazed not just by the Premier's announcement but by the speed with which it happened.
Imagine that you are an executive with, say, oh, how about the LCBO? You take a week off fishing to enjoy the calm after the kids go back to school. You drive back to Toronto Sunday night, switch on the television and there's the Premier.
What's he doing surrounded by cases of beer? you ask yourself. And on a Sunday, too. There goes the church-goers' vote.
You turn up the volume. Then you notice the urgent flashing light on your answering machine and you are afraid to check your email.
Meanwhile, back in the Beer Store's distribution warehouse in Brampton, there was Premier McGuinty, surrounded by a suitable throng of stakeholders, telling us that there is indeed a Santa Claus, and the wicked witch is dead.
I've got to tell you; I'm still pinching myself.
How could this happen?
After all, the logic behind deposits has been there for ages. No one whose head was not in the clouds (or anywhere else for that matter) could deny that they mean increased recovery and better quality empties. The LCBO, however, has been in denial for the entire time.
I suppose if you are bringing in a billion-dollar profit people tend to leave you alone when it comes to other matters. And if you have a former Tory big shot in charge, that can't hurt either.
But times change.
The 362.88-kilo gorilla known to his friends as

Borderclosing has been sitting in on cabinet meetings for some time, trying to get some attention. Well, he got that attention last month and all of a sudden the Province's targets took on  a new perspective--not the 60% diversion by 2008 target -- the 0% waste to Michigan by 2010 target.
And let's not forget that cardinal sin among the mighty--arrogance.
With a virtual free hand to run the show how it wanted, and with no competition, the LCBO has been strutting around like it owned the joint. In theory, we own the joint (I for one have made a heavy investment), but you'd never know it. The place has be run like a private old boys' club.
And with the support of our good friends at CSR, the LCBO has been propping up the blue box with impressive payments that look good on paper but don't come close to covering the one half of real cost of carrying wine and liquor containers recovered that the legislation intends.
As the changes in collection methods led to lower and lower glass quality and more contamination issues, the answer was to throw money at research to find alternative markets to the aggregate substitute uses (euphemistically termed "recycling")  for uses that are a little less obviously not recycling. And all the time, a perfect market had existed and continues to exist, but it requires a better quality recovered product.  No research is required, and there is no better use of the material than to make new containers. That is what recycling is supposed to be.
And to add insult to injury, the blinkered promoters of the curbside system for collecting glass like this have played key roles in determining "efficiency".
If you look at who was standing behind the Premier and who has been supporting the call for deposits, you'll find some folks who have crossed the floor, so to speak.
The bottle makers and the wineries were always calling the blue box tune but they have changed their stance.
The LCBO's misguided and very public embracing of alternative packaging is fooling no one, however much it may keep playing the enviro card. And by bullying the wine makers and turning their backs on the bottle makers, the liquor store mandarins have only helped the cause of the deposit lobby.
     You might call it  a fiasco--if you'll pardon the allusion to glass.