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The Progressive Conservative government is proposing changes to Ontario’s recycling program that would reverse a planned expansion, push targets back by five years and allow for more waste to be burned in an attempt to deal with concerns from stakeholders about “unanticipated costs.”
It’s a proposal one advocate of protecting the environment says is “a huge step back for waste policy.”
According to the proposed regulation, posted for public comment until July 4, cost increases for blue box collection and recycling services are “creating real affordability concerns that could negatively impact both businesses and consumers in Ontario.”
The regulations currently in place put the onus on producers of waste to fund and operate the province’s recycling systems. This change was made officially in 2021 when the PCs adopted regulations outlining the rules, after being first put forward in 2016 by the then-Liberal government under the Resource Recovery and Circular Economy Act.
Before then, municipalities were on the hook for a portion of the costs, projected at about $171 million in 2022.
The provincial government says the costs of collecting and recycling waste have increased since then due to inflation, labour shortages and supply chain issues. As a result, it is proposing to push recovery targets set to begin in 2026 by five years. Those targets for flexible plastic would also be reduced significantly, from 25 per cent in 2025 to five per cent as of 2031.
A planned expansion to more multi-residential buildings, long-term care and retirement homes, and schools would also be cancelled under the new proposal, as would plans to operate blue boxes in more public spaces and expand recycling of beverage containers to industrial and commercial settings.
These changes are meant to give producers “time to make necessary investments in technology and infrastructure to improve the processing and recycling of blue box materials,” the regulation said.
Karen Wirsig, senior program manager of plastics at Environmental Defence, warned that, “if the provincial government is concerned about landfill capacity, this is totally moving in the wrong direction.”
“We're also likely to see more burning of packaging waste, in part because producers will be able to call some of that recycling, which is a real problem.”
The Ford government is also proposing to allow producers to apply incinerated recyclable materials towards their recycling targets.
The current rules prevent producers from including materials used as fuel or sent to an incinerator from their recovery targets, and the government says they have heard “this prohibition is overly restrictive” and “does not recognize factors such as packaging design or contamination in determining what can be recycled.”
Instead, the government is proposing to allow material collected and sent for incineration to make up 15 per cent of a producer’s recycling target.
“It's not recycling,” Wirsig said. “We'll likely see more dangerous air pollution, especially in places where waste will be burned.”
Wirsig said that energy generation is not the primary purpose of waste incineration, describing it as "dress up” to make the process appear more “environmentally virtuous."
“It's a very dirty source of energy,” she said. “It is the lipstick they put on the pig of waste incineration.”
On Thursday, Energy Minister Stephen Lecce launched Ontario's “plan to secure energy for generations.” In the plan, officials list “energy-from-waste” as among the projects contributing to the province’s electricity and hydrogen production. The report says the York Durham Energy Centre in Clarington processes up to 140,000 tonnes of waste each year and generates up to 17.5 megawatts of electricity.
Environmental groups have long argued that waste-to-energy processes could lead to poor air quality and heighten public health risks.
The government’s new proposal for energy recovery would apply to non-recyclable materials.
For Wirsig, the amendments show that producers haven’t taken the last 10 years to transform how they design product packaging so they can be more effectively collected and recycled.
A survey of grocery stores conducted by Environmental Defence last year showed there’s even more plastic on the shelves, and less than 15 per cent was recyclable.
“We're moving not in the right direction, and they've had nearly 10 years to know that this is coming,” Wirsig said.
“Instead, what we're seeing is no improvement of packaging design, probably like worse packaging design than ever, and now they've gone whining to the province about how costly this system that they've created for themselves is.”
Wirsig acknowledged that while the legislation for the new blue box program passed in 2016, the regulations didn’t come into effect for years and in that time there was no investment as a result. International companies are also not making packaging decisions based on Ontario’s needs.
“All those costs, that's legitimate,” she said. “The problem is that true, extended producer responsibility should have responsibilized them to reduce packaging, reduce the cost to the environment, and design systems that were more circular, and that's what's being lost here.”
Allen Langdon, CEO of Circular Materials, a national not-for-profit founded by manufacturers like Coca-Cola, Loblaw, Nestle and Maple Leaf that helps producers meet their recycling obligations, said they are “in the early stages” of reviewing the proposal.
“Our focus is and continues to be on delivering an (extended producer responsibility) program in Ontario that improves recycling and increases performance and environmental outcomes,” the statement said.
Circular Materials is committed to working with the government, producers and stakeholders to support solutions that result in an effective and efficient recycling program that will improve recycling rates for Ontarians.”
Environment Minister Todd McCarthy was unavailable for an interview, but a spokesperson said the proposal was meant to improve transparency, help manage costs and ensure current services are maintained.
