AMO paper rekindles dialogue for new Waste Reduction Act

Solid Waste & Recycling Magazine 

AMO paper addresses “growing discord” between municipalities and producers on fair blue box compensation; and addresses municipal hazardous and special waste program that “has been through several iterations”

Ontario’s long-awaited Bill 91, the Waste Reduction Act, 2013, died on the House floor at Queen’s Park last spring, when the provincial election was announced. Now, discussion papers around how to revive similar yet different legislation are making the rounds, as we start the process of recycling our recycling legislation.

The Association of Municipalities Ontario (AMO) has released a new municipal discussion paper called New Waste Reduction and Resource Recovery Framework Legislation. It’s a document that aims to return the discussion around waste reduction to municipalities’ burden of footing the primary bill, while product producers continue to evade cost repercussions for a product’s post-consumer lifespan.

In an April 15 letter to the Minister of the Environment and Climate Change, AMO president Gary McNamara wrote that, since 2008, the province has called for shifting the financial burden from property taxpayers to producers for end-of-life management of products and packaging.

“It is time to make this happen,” wrote McNamara. “The new legislative framework must result in measurable reduction and diversion of waste from disposal while striking a balance that provides producers with the authority they require to manage these costs while also being fair to municipalities.”

Although years in the making, last year’s Bill 91 failed to find a consensus among major players in the waste and recycling industry. Many stakeholders viewed the proposal as not going far enough to make industry foot the bill as stewards of its own waste, while others feared the Bill would drive away Ontario manufacturers to more leniently-regulated waste jurisdictions in the U.S. These arguments made Bill 91 one of the most hotly-debated Bills in the Legislature during the 40th session. However, following the 2013 December break, Bill 91 failed to return to the fray, at Queen’s Park, and was never addressed again.

AMO’s discussion paper notes that while waste diversion programs under the 2002 version of the Act have had some success, there has been just as much confusion, an unfair shouldering of costs by municipalities.

The discussion paper highlights a few particular aspects of diversion. It addresses the “growing discord” between municipalities and producers on fair compensation for delivery of the blue box program; it addresses the municipal hazardous and special waste program that “has been through several iterations with the designated materials being split into three phases or groupings.”

New Waste Reduction and Resource Recovery Framework Legislation

The discussion paper also highlights the waste electronic and electrical equipment program that “has experienced extreme changes in incentive payments to collectors and processors,” essentially creating a “highly unstable market with little predictability,” the paper states.

AMO also raises the issue of the growing pharmaceutical and sharps program in municipalities, despite no funding for such services, and an existing return-to-retail model for such products.

The AMO paper also makes a general plea for Ontario to take action on a waste diversion scheme that addresses the industrial, commercial and institutional sector, where diversion rates are extremely low compared to the residential sector.