Farm groups seek greater clarity in provincial waste reduction bill

by SUSAN MANN

Ontario’s proposed Waste Reduction bill is currently being debated at Queen’s Park but it needs some clarity before provincial farm groups say they can give it their whole-hearted support.

Environment Ministry spokesperson Kate Jordan says Bill 91 is being debated as part of second reading. The first round of debate began earlier this week.

The proposed legislation would enable companies to recycle their waste instead of sending it to landfill sites. The proposal is part of the government’s waste reduction strategy, which is designed to:

• Boost recycling in the industrial, commercial and institutional sectors starting with paper and packaging waste.
• Improve oversight and accountability of waste diversion.
• Allow for greater funding by manufacturers of the Blue Box program to ease the financial burden on municipalities.
• Foster innovation in product packaging and design.

Ontario Federation of Agriculture president Mark Wales says overall the bill is positive – if some parts of it are clarified. The federation spearheaded the agricultural industry’s coordinated response to the bill by forming the Ontario Agriculture Waste Management Partnership coalition.

The group submitted a response to the Ontario Environment Ministry’s bill earlier this month. The coalition includes other farm groups along with the federation as well as a landscape organization and the Ontario Animal Health Institute.

Wales says the coalition was formed because “we needed to take a look at how it (the bill) would impact everybody.”

One example outlined in the agriculture coalition’s submission of where clarity is needed concerns a section of the bill that calls for “producers” to assume full responsibility for designated wastes across the entire distribution chain. The bill doesn’t clearly define who a producer is.

In addition, “clarity is a needed on the scope of responsibility and liability individual producers face,” the submission says. For example, one part of the bill makes producers responsible for how prices on designated products are advertised and communicated to consumers. But not all producers sell products and they don’t have control over how retailers choose prices and advertise products to consumers. But “the (bill) attempts to place full liability for meeting this requirement on the producer,” the submission says.

Still, Wales says there are lots of positive aspects to the bill. For example,
Allowing greater recycling flexibility will help deal with the off-road tire recycling challenge because currently the province’s Waste Diversion Act prohibits incineration, forbids getting dirt on them and stops their use in landfill applications. But the bill proposes “a lot more innovative uses for whatever the product being recycled is,” he says.

The bill also proposes more onus on manufacturers for recycling and gives municipalities more opportunities to recycle but would prevent the use of recycling fees as a cash cow. “If municipalities have any recycling fees or charges they have to be able to defend them all,” Wales notes.

As for what will happen to eco fees, he says the bill proposes to make the cost of recycling part of the wholesale cost of products. “The eco fees will go away but the full lifecycle cost of recycling that product is going to be part of the cost of that product,” he notes.
 
The Ontario environment ministry says on its website that Ontario households are recycling 46 per cent of the wastes they generate. Industries, businesses and institutions, such as shopping malls, hospitals and offices, generate 60 per cent of Ontario’s waste but recycle only 13 per cent.

Ontario industries, businesses and institutions produce the majority of the province’s waste and have the worst recycling record.

That record does not apply to the agricultural sector says Barry Friesen, general manager of CleanFARMS. For the farm recycling programs in place, such as voluntary pesticide and fertilizer container recycling, farmers are some of the best stewards of the land and “that includes managing their waste products. We have a more than 65 per cent recovery rate nationwide” in the pesticide container recycling program.

Friesen says there aren’t specific numbers outlining how many containers are recycled in the province. But “Ontario farmers do a tremendous job” and CleanFARMS suspects the container recycling numbers in the province are probably a lot higher than the national figure, he notes. CleanFARMS is a non-profit industry stewardship organization. It is part of the Agriculture Waste Management Partnership.

Friesen says “we’re excited about this new waste reduction (proposed legislation) because it will require the manufacturers to get involved” in recycling.

Wales says he hopes changes to recycling proposed in the bill would allow the cost of recycling tires to go down. The tires themselves would then cost less because the recycling fee would be less than it is now since there would be new market opportunities. But “there’s a reality check here. When was the last time you bought something and it went down in price?” he asks.

As for other products farmers use, Wales says they’d have to look at each item one-by-one to determine what the impact of the waste reduction bill would be because some products have a visible eco fee now and some don’t. BF