Award winners (left to right): Gerry Chaput, Chris Papatolis, Kyle Perdue, Graham DeRose, Shawn Smith, Carol Layton, Tom Hewitt, Tony Loong, Lou Politano

Today, staff at the Ministry of Transportation (MTO) received the Environmental Commissioner of Ontarioā€™s (ECO) 2011 Recognition Award for using two environmentally beneficial innovations: bioretention cells and rubber modified asphalt (RMA). The innovations are used at the carpool lot in Beamsville, Ontario, located at the Queen Elizabeth Way and Ontario Street Interchange.

This project earned MTO the ECO Recognition Award for its benefits on stormwater management, waste diversion and the promotion of carpooling.

“This is the second year in a row that MTO received this award,” said Gord Miller, Environmental Commissioner of Ontario. “The ministry provided a good example for municipalities, agencies and the public sector for use in future road planning and construction. I look forward to seeing more such innovative efforts to conserve our environment from other ministries.”

The bioretention cells mimic the natural hydrologic cycle. It infiltrates, filters, evaporates and detains sediments that flow from the pavement of the parking lot (runoff), while treating pollution at its source. Bioretention also acts as habitat for wildlife, improves air quality and reduces the urban heat island effect. Approximately 4,000 cubic meters of runoff is filtered through the system each year, equivalent to two Olympic sized swimming pools.

RMA is made from scrap rubber tires, ground and conventional hot mix asphalt. About 4 tonnes of scrap rubber tires were used for the Ontario Street carpool lot, preventing 624 tires from ending up in the landfill. The use of RMA in this project will help further develop the technology so scrap tires can be diverted from landfills and less virgin natural resources will be used in future paving projects.

Each year, the ECO invites ministries to submit programs and projects for special recognition. The ECOā€™s Recognition Award acknowledges those ministries that best meet the goals of theĀ Environmental Bill of Rights, 1993 (EBR) or use the best internalĀ EBRĀ practices. In 2011, five ministries responded to the ECO’s call for nominations, submitting 15 projects for consideration. An armā€™s-length panel reviewed the submissions.

For a list of past recipients of the ECO’s Recognition Award, visit http://www.ecoissues.ca/index.php/The_Environmental_Commissioner%E2%80%99s_Recognition_Award_2011

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Aging landfills are a longstanding issue for the ECO.Ā Since opening our office in 1994, we have received hundreds of calls from the public concerned about the potential environmental harm resulting from small and aging landfills.Ā Sharing their frustrations, we voiced our concerns regarding the lack of Ministry of the Environment (MOE) oversight of small and aging landfills in our 2006 Annual Report, and strongly urged MOE to create a publicly accessible inventory of all landfills in Ontario, and to update outdated Certificates of Approvals (C of A) for landfills.Ā These findings were also echoed in the Auditor General of Ontarioā€™s 2010 Annual Report, released yesterday.

We decided to revisit this issue in our 2010 Annual Report and found that our concerns regarding MOE oversight and transparency on landfills remained unresolved. The ministry had lost track of hundreds of aging landfills, which potentially threaten Ontarioā€™s water and air quality. MOE was only inspecting 11 per cent of landfills with Cs of A, while approximately 1000 dumps that closed prior to the creation of MOE were, for the most part, forgotten. The public was still unable to access up-to-date information on landfills, despite MOE publishing an inventory in 1991. Furthermore, a process to update outdated landfill Cs of A still did not exist.

We are happy to learn that in response to the issues raised by both our office and the Auditor General, MOE has begun to work on some good initiatives to strengthen the oversight of aging landfills. Among these is a publicly accessible list of 2,400 Ontario landfills with Cs of A that has been added to the MOE website.Ā  This list will evolve so the information can be easily searchable. We have also been assured that monitoring, assessment, and reporting on compliance of landfills will all be improved over the coming months and years. Stay tuned for more information on MOEā€™s progress in meeting our recommendations and its own commitments for better oversight of landfills.

I was struck yesterday by the cover and a two page interior story in the Toronto Sun bashing the City of Torontoā€™s by-law requiring a 5 cent levy on plastic bags (Companies bagging big ā€˜ecoā€™ profits, Toronto Sun, Aug 4/10).Ā  The article slams Loblaws for supposedly making over $10 million in profit a year (by the reporters calculation) from nickel fees that we arenā€™t paying because most of us arenā€™t taking the bags.

By this logic, I would suggest that the store charge $1 a bag so they could make $200 million from fees we arenā€™t paying. (Loblaws, by the way, is appropriately credited with giving $1 million per year to WWF to offset any real ā€œprofitā€ they really do realize.)

The author goes on to admit that ā€œmanyā€ customers like her have been forced to buy other bags to pick up dog poop.Ā  Egad!Ā  If the policy has been so effective that none of her friends or relatives can help out the pooch with a bag or two from some purchasing indiscretion, how can retailers be making the millions of dollars?

Also criticized in the same article are the reusable bags sold by retailers, each of which ā€œshamelessly advertises the chain store that has created itā€ as if advertising is a sin.Ā  I guess the reporter hadnā€™t noticed the ā€œshamelessā€ advertising on the non-reusable bags all these years.

The thing is that the ā€œinjusticeā€ alluded to here is the so-called eco profit.Ā  There will never be a follow up article citing corporate retailers for any other type of revenue grab.Ā  The article is just another in a long series of media reports which cast any environmental or energy conservation initiative in a negative light.Ā  That is the latest obsession with some members of the media.

To these defenders of the status quo, the old way of doing things, the ā€œbrownā€ way, is inherently good.Ā  If itā€™s ā€œgreenā€ it must be bad.Ā  If itā€™s brown we should invest money, if itā€™s green itā€™s a cost we canā€™t afford.Ā  If itā€™s brown we must send a market signal, if itā€™s green we must fight the tax.Ā  Billions in taxpayer funded stimulus spending and corporate bailouts is a necessary social good but a nickel for a plastic bag that we donā€™t have to pay is something to really get riled about.

Gord Miller
Environmental Commissioner of Ontario
commissioner@eco.on.ca

Today I released a special report to the Legislature, Getting it Right: Paying for the Management of Household Hazardous Wastes. (Click here to download the report.)

Ontarioā€™s program for managing hazardous waste is an important step in the right direction and should not be scrapped.Ā  Click here for some background on Ontarioā€™s hazardous waste program.Ā  However, the program is not perfect, and I have two key recommendations to improve it.

I fear that recent controversy and confusion over the implementation of the second phase of the hazardous waste management program, particularly the unfortunate decision by some retailers to invent the concept of ā€œeco feesā€, could jeopardize the future of this necessary program. My report aims to provide clarity about the program and refocus the discussion back on the core issue: how to manage ā€“ and finance the management of ā€“ hazardous wastes.

While not perfect, the hazardous waste program is definitely a step in the right direction. It will keep more hazardous materials out of our environment and will take the cost of managing these wastes off the taxpayer and put it where it belongs: on the manufacturers of the hazardous waste products.

Without a waste diversion program, most hazardous household wastes are thrown out with regular garbage and end up in a landfill or incinerator, where chemicals in the wastes can contaminate Ontarioā€™s water, soil and air.

Anticipating an increase in wholesale prices, some retailers recently increased the prices of affected products and made this increase visible on receipts as an ā€œeco feeā€. ā€œEco feesā€ were never a component of Ontarioā€™s hazardous waste program.

Despite my support for the program, my report identifies some necessary areas for improvement.

One key problem with the program is thereā€™s no incentive for manufacturers to make their products greener, since they are all charged the same ā€˜steward feeā€™ regardless of how green their products are. Instead, the manufacturer of a product, say a paint, that is less toxic (and therefore easier and cheaper to manage when discarded) should pay a lower ā€˜steward feeā€™ than the manufacturer of a more toxic and more difficult to manage product.

Another problem with Ontarioā€™s program is that manufacturers only pay for the management of wastes collected through the program and not for wastes going to landfill. Because Stewardship Ontario aims to collect only 42% of the available hazardous waste in the programā€™s first year, taxpayers will still be footing the bill for managing more than half of Ontarioā€™s hazardous waste.

Recommendations

To ensure that the full potential of stewardship is achieved, the I have two recommendations to improve the program:

1. The Ministry of the Environment should require stewards to pay fees that differ based on the environmental costs of managing their products once they become waste. Only differential fees will encourage competition between companies, which should result in less toxic and more recyclable products, and keep the program costs in check.
2. The Ministry of the Environment should require that the hazardous waste program cover all costs of waste management, including the costs of disposing those products not collected through the program and lost to landfill.

(Click here to download the report.)

Past ECO Reporting on Ontarioā€™s hazardous waste disposal programs:

• 60% Waste Diversion by 2008 ā€“ Pipe Dream or Reality? (2005/06)
• Municipal Hazardous or Special Waste (MHSW) Program Plan (2007/08)
• Ontarioā€™s Waste Electrical and Electronic Equipment (WEEE) Program Plan (2008/09)

Today I released a special report to the Legislature, Getting it Right: Paying for the Management of Household Hazardous Wastes. (Click here for more information about the report; click here to download the report.)

This is an excerpt from the report which clarifies some some of the features of the provinceā€™s hazardous waste program.

A fee is charged to stewards ā€“ not to consumers or retailers.
Under the Municipal Special and Hazardous Waste (MHSW) program, Stewardship Ontario charges stewards (e.g., manufacturers) a fee by unit for products introduced into the Ontario marketplace that require the management of hazardous or special waste when discarded.

Making stewards pay for the recycling and safe disposal of wastes created by their products helps transfer the costs of managing these wastes from the taxpayer to the steward.

The ā€œeco feeā€ was created by retailers and is not a component of the MHSW Plan.
The MHSW Plan leaves it up to stewards whether to absorb the stewardship fees charged by Stewardship Ontario as a cost of doing business or to ā€œpass the fee alongā€ by increasing the wholesale price of the products it sells to retailers. Under the MHSW Plan, retailers face a similar choice; while some may choose to absorb the increase in wholesale price, others may add some or all of the price increase to the price tags of the products it sells.

When the program was implemented on July 1, 2010, some retailers chose to create a separate ā€œeco feeā€ line on their cash register receipts, presumably to make a price increase visible to consumers. The government, however, does not require retailers to charge consumers an ā€œeco feeā€.

The ā€œeco feeā€ is not a tax.
Money collected through ā€œeco feesā€ is retained by retailers; none of the proceeds go to government. As explained above, ā€œeco feesā€ are receipt lines created by some retailers presumably to make visible an increase in wholesale prices resulting from fees paid by manufacturers to Stewardship Ontario. Stewardship Ontario uses the funds to finance the collection and recycling of hazardous and special wastes created by stewardsā€™ products, as well as cover Stewardship Ontarioā€™s operating expenses.

Charging manufacturers and importers fees to cover the costs of Ontarioā€™s waste diversion programs is nothing new.
To finance the first phase of Ontarioā€™s MHSW program, manufacturers and importers of paints, antifreeze, fertilizers and other Phase 1 MHSW materials have been charged stewardship fees since July 1, 2008.

To finance Ontarioā€™s Waste Electrical & Electronic Equipment (WEEE) recycling program, manufacturers and importers of computers, televisions and other electronic equipment have been charged stewardship fees since April 1, 2009.

To finance Ontarioā€™s Used Tires Program Plan, brand owners and first importers of vehicle tires have been charged a Tire Stewardship Fee for every new tire supplied into the Ontario market since September 1, 2009.

Stewards are able to set up their own diversion program.
Stewards of a designated MHSW material that wish to take direct responsibility for managing their obligations under the Waste Diversion Act, 2002 can apply to Waste Diversion Ontario for approval of their own recycling program rather than participating in the Stewardship Ontario program. Several industry groups are currently in the process of doing so.

The public was consulted in the development of the MHSW Plan.
Stakeholders (including municipalities, manufacturers, retailers, and consumer groups) were consulted on the MHSW Plan during multiple consultation meetings. The public was invited to comment on the program plan via postings on the Environmental Registry (#010-0558 and #010-7325). The decision to move forward with the second phase of the MHSW Plan was posted on the Environmental Registry on October 15, 2009.

The use and disposal of hazardous materials carry an unavoidable cost.
Ontarians ultimately pay the cost of this disposal, whether through a taxpayer-funded municipal recycling program, the markup of product prices to fund a steward-managed program, reduced landfill space or a degraded environment caused by unsafe disposal.

Related Reading:

• 60% Waste Diversion by 2008 ā€“ Pipe Dream or Reality? (2005/06)
• Municipal Hazardous or Special Waste (MHSW) Program Plan (2007/08)
• Ontarioā€™s Waste Electrical and Electronic Equipment (WEEE) Program Plan (2008/09)

Recycling in multi-unit buildings poses unique challenges, but many residents are driven to participate anyway.