Almost nine years later on October 31st 2007 CBC Marketplace ran a piece on the current efficacy of the RBRC program. Largely prompted by an Environment Canada report (prepared by the venerable Maria Kelleher - MWIN's Waste Management Professional of The Year 2007) Marketplace asked all the right questions.

It is interesting to note that notwithstanding a recovery and recycling rate of less than 10%, rechargable batteries are not inlcuded in Phase 1 of Ontario's Municipal Household Special Waste (MHSW) program (single use dry cell batteries are). In a May 18th 2007 letter from then Minister of Environment, The Hon. Laurel Broten to the RBRC the Minister states, "By all accounts, RBRC's programs have been a great success, and we certainly appreciate your contributions to our waste diversion efforts in Ontario."

Click here to watch CBC Marketplace's Batteries Not Inlcuded

In January of 2007 the Ontario Government announced a proposed ban on burning of used oil in space heaters in Southern Ontario.

Recently opinion articles questioning the science and motives behind the ban have been appearing in small-town newspapers such as the Peterborough Examiner and Owen Sound Sun Times.

These articles are written by Dr. Timothy Ball whose byline describes him as, “chairman of the Natural Resources Stewardship Project (NRSP.com)…” and, “…a Victoria-based environmental consultant and former climatology professor at the University of Winnipeg…”, while Tom Harris is described as, “…an Ottawa-based mechanical engineer and NRSP executive director.”

Tim and Tom present themselves as highly qualified and seemingly disinterested individuals who, judging by the name of their organization – the Natural Resources Stewardship Project – might even be taken as ardent environmental advocates lobbying out of an altruistic concern for the public interest.

Moreover on face value their query to the Minister of the Environment seems reasonable. The say, “…we asked Broten to explain how she came to her decision…” adding, “…One would expect that, if her decision was based on a proper environmental analysis, she would readily disclose the information we requested.”

But all is not as it seems.

It is one thing to question the scientific basis for a policy decision but it is quite another to advocate for the alternative proposed to be banned. In this light let’s look at what Tim and Tom said about used oil space heaters in the Owen Sound Sun Times article, “Used oil heaters have been successfully operating in the province for at least 15 years. Hundreds of small businesses in Ontario, at least 20 in Owen Sound alone - car dealerships, bus fleets, farm equipment dealers, etc. - have invested in these systems to carefully dispose of waste oil while reducing space heating costs. Strict emission regulations apply and we know of no evidence that these regulations are not being followed.”

By what evidence have Tim and Tom come to the unequivocal conclusion that used oil furnaces have been operating, “successfully” (whatever that means) and “carefully” - did they undertake an evaluation of the 800 or so facilities operating across Ontario? Did the Ministry of Environment give them this information? If not then what supports this assertion? And where did Tim and Tom get the notion that, “strict emissions regulations” apply to used oil furnaces?

Well gents, if questions are good for the Minister of Environment then surely you’ll be happy to field some questions of your own no?

And Messrs. Tim and Tom, just as an inconvenient FYI, used oil furnaces are not regulated by the emissions they discharge – there are no “strict emissions regulations” on used oil furnaces per se - but by the concentrations of heavy metals and toxics in the used oil. By current Ontario standards its okay to burn used oil without pollution controls that, “contains not more than 5 milligrams per kilogram arsenic, not more than 2 milligrams per kilogram cadmium, not more than 10 milligrams per kilogram chromium, not more than 50 milligrams per kilogram lead, not more than 2 milligrams per kilogram PCBs…and not more than 1,500 milligrams per kilogram total halogens.”

It doesn’t take a “climatology professor” from the University of Winnipeg to know that without any pollution controls whatsoever what goes into a used oil furnace has to come out into the air – put lead into a used oil furnace and out of the stack comes most of the lead you put in (with the rest ending up as residue in the furnace). If one burns thousands of liters of used oil every winter one ends up putting hundreds of grams of heavy metals (and other carcinogens and toxins) into the local air-shed (largely in urban areas where most of these units operate). That is why both the medical officers of health for the City of Toronto and Peel Region support the ban on burning used oil for space heating.

But we are not operating in the realm of fact and rationality here but in the realm of propaganda – and these articles are brilliant propaganda. That is that, “Instead of impartially providing information, propaganda can present facts but do so selectively, produce deliberately misleading information, or load messages, whether essentially truthful or not, with emotional meaning in order to produce an emotional rather than rational response to the message that is being presented.”

What better way to undermine the Government and its policy agenda than by questioning its science, casting doubt and fomenting fear through economic alarmism? Does this sound familiar? Hasn’t this been the same tactic used to delay action on climate change?

Well of course it has and Tim and Tom are no neophytes in this regard.

Until late October 2006 Tom was listed as a Director of Operations of the Ottawa office of the High Park Group (HPG), a Canadian public relations and lobbying firm.

Additionally, SourceWatch.org reports that the Natural Resource Stewardship Project (NRSP), “…is led by Executive Director, Tom Harris, who, in November 2002, while in the employ of the PR firm APCO Worldwide, organized a press conference titled ‘International Climate Experts Speak Out Against Climate Change Myths’. The press conference was sponsored by Talisman Energy Inc. and Imperial Oil (ExxonMobil's Canadian subsidiary). Many of the same scientists and advisors now linked to the NRSP were present, including Tim Ball.”

For more information on the Natural Resources Stewardship Project read, “NRSP Controlled by Energy Lobbyists” at desmogblog.com or if you have time watch The Fifth Estate's THE DENIAL MACHINE

Oh and by the way, I am a policy analyst to Safety-Kleen Canada Inc. - the oil re-refiner that according to Tim and Tom, “…stands to significantly increase their business as a result of her decision.” If Safety-Kleen was 100% successful in competing to recover all this newly available used oil its Ontario collections might increase by about 10% and if not then the used oil no longer burned in used oil furnaces in Ontario will end up being collected by its competitors and shipped out of province to be burned as waste derived fuel (half of the used oil generated in the province annually is shipped primarily to the U.S. to be burned).

Now you know who I am and why I have an interest in the issue. As for Tim and Tom you’ll have to ask them about what is motivating them to take the time to write their stories.

I have reproduced Tim and Tom’s stories as they appeared in the Owen Sound Sun Times and Peterborough Examiner on May 17th and June 9th 2007 below.

Jean Charest’s government is about to enact legislation prohibiting the sale of non-reusable water bottles. Acting on its opposition to these new 15-liter bottles that must be disposed of after use, the province will refer the problem to Cabinet in a few days.

According to information obtained by La Presse, Environment Minister Claude Béchard wants prompt action in this matter, in order to prevent, in this province, a similar situation to that of Ontario, where these containers have come to enjoy growing popularity over the past year.

Béchard will, "within the next one to three weeks", table a draft regulation "prohibiting the distribution of large non-reusable containers". The term "large containers" refers to any bottles with a capacity of more than 8 liters.
When reached yesterday, Pascal d'Astous, the Minister’s spokesperson, confirmed the news but would not provide any specific details. "A draft regulation will be presented to Cabinet in the near future," was all he would say.

This move follows water bottler Amaro’s introduction to the market of a new container that Minister Béchard believes is not environmentally friendly. Unlike the traditional 11- and 18-liter sizes, which can be reused a maximum of 70 times, the new bottles are thrown away or placed in the recycling bin after a single use.

This also explains why Minister Béchard wrote a letter to Costco, in May 2006, asking them to stop selling this new type of water bottle. The response was an unequivocal "no". In his letter, he points out that "we see this product as a step backward in our attempts to protect the environment and our natural resources".

Sources indicate that since that time, the tone of the exchanges between the Minister, Amaro and Costco has changed. Over the past few months, both the bottler and the retailer have apparently agreed to align their stance with that of the Charest government.

"Amaro is in favour of a regulation prohibiting the sale of 15-liter single-use containers,” the company’s spokesperson, Pierre Gince, said yesterday. “Our only reason for selling water in single-use bottles was to meet demand among our Quebec clients, so they wouldn’t cross over into Ontario to stock up."

The new bottle size enjoyed immediate popularity in this neighbouring province. Observers believe the reason is that it met a consumer need. Customers would often turn up their noses at refillable bottles, which scratched easily. They also balked at paying a $10 deposit – a requirement intended to encourage clients to bring back their bottles.

Retail giant Costco would not comment on this news yesterday. Minister Béchard’s office, however, was pleased with the company’s decision to discontinue selling these bottles once the stock runs out. "We are happy to see Costco comply with our order,” stated Mr. d'Astous. “The company chose to follow in the footsteps of used tire and motor oil manufacturers, and to be a good corporate citizen."

Since the beginning, the Canadian Council of Grocery Distributors has supported the Minister’s actions. The organization, which represents major chains such as Metro, Loblaws and Sobeys, had decided not to sell these non-reusable containers.

Parti québécois Environment critic Stephan Tremblay was the first, in November 2005, to point out the danger that Amaro’s change in policy posed for the environment. Nutrinor, one of its competitors, confirmed the existence of the problem at the time, pointing out that adopting this process would require them to make 628 additional truck trips to transport the soft plastic containers.

I was surprised to see the term "industrial ecology" mentioned repeatedly in the Board's recommendations. It is a term that I haven't heard in a while. In the intervening period since I heard it last the concept of "industrial ecology" has been somewhat popularized by such works as William McDonough & Michael Braungart's Cradle to Cradle: Remaking the Way We Make Things.

While the concept of industrial systems mimicking natural ecological systems - where one industrial sector utilizes the waste of another sector as feedstock for what the Board calls "productive processes" - is a conceptually simple one, current industrial systems generally do not operate in that way. They generally produce things that are very difficult to "remetabolize" because reuse and recycling was never part of the design process of those things.

Anyway here are the CB's recommendations - it's all pretty high level stuff but intertesting nonetheless.

Recommendations for Environmentally Sound Growth

14) All levels of government work with research institutions to undertake extensive research on ways of dealing with wastes, including ways to convert wastes into inputs for productive processes.
15) Municipal governments and NGOs work with industry to facilitate industry information sharing on eco-industrial networks, clusters and parks.
16) All levels of government and NGOs raise awareness of the economic benefits of industrial ecology to encourage greater industry and municipal participation.
17) Federal and provincial governments review and change regulations to support industrial ecology by permitting the development and use of by-products created from wastes.
18) All levels of government use fiscal tools, such as charging higher wastewater disposal fees and solid waste tipping fees, to support environmentally sound practices.
19) Municipal governments either provide the appropriate infrastructure and design for industrial parks or retrofit them to facilitate the co-sharing of areas and the exchanges and transformation of wastes into by-products.
20) Businesses consider changes in management and leasing policies to accommodate co-use of facilities.

Thefull report can be downloaded by going here: Conference Board of Canada

Publish Date: January 18, 2007

http://www.straight.com/article/untracked-toxic-waste-seeps-out-of-sight

____________

This is a story about how British Columbia’s system for tracking hazardous wastes is badly broken.

About how, in the space of a few short years, our government has seemingly lost its ability to account for one of the most prevalent toxic substances in our midst.

About how, by turning a chemical soup into a commodity and promoting competition for it between companies, we’ve ensured that gobs of it go untreated, with all the attendant environmental, health, and economic ills that that implies.

To begin the story, let’s start with a statistic from the Insurance Corporation of British Columbia. In 2000, there were 2.56 million vehicles on the city streets and highways of Canada’s westernmost province. By 2004, that number had swelled by 7.5 percent, adding another 210,000 cars, trucks, buses, and the like to our already clogged road network.

The engines in all those vehicles, plus those in a formidable fleet of boats and an array of machines ranging from drilling rigs to cranes hoisting steel beams to the top of Yaletown high-rises, would rapidly break down were it not for regular oil changes. That is why used oil is among the most significant hazardous wastes by volume in modern society.

And used oil is hazardous, a threat to our health and environment. It may be riddled with carcinogens like benzene, cadmium, and chromium. It is contaminated with trace metals and acids that are highly toxic to fish. And it often contains minute amounts of polychlorinated biphenyls, or PCBs, among the most persistent man-made chemicals known. PCBs are linked to reproductive failure in orcas and human health risks, including skin rashes and liver failure. And this is only a partial list.

It is understandable, then, why British Columbia has long deemed used oil to be a “special” waste and regulated its transport and disposal. But just how rigorous is our government in tracking this waste and safeguarding the public interest? As a Georgia Straight investigation of B.C.’s infrequently used waste-tracking system suggests, the answer appears to be at best not very and at worst not at all. And unless there is a turnaround, we can expect spectacular abuses. Abuses like the one at an Abbotsford warehouse in 2005, when the province declared an environmental emergency and spent untold taxpayer dollars cleaning up the mess left behind when Canada Petroleum Corporation—a company that had illegally stockpiled toxic wastes for years—folded. More likely, however, the abuses will be less conspicuous but numerous, slowly and collectively adding to our environmental and health woes.

You can’t regulate what you don’t know, which is, ostensibly, why B.C.’s Ministry of Environment requires toxic-waste handlers to submit special forms known as manifests. The forms provide details on what wastes are picked up where, and, in theory, allow public servants to track the movement of everything from old pipes insulated with asbestos to PCB-contaminated transformers to blood-soaked biomedical wastes from hospitals. In a given year, more than 70,000 such forms are mailed to the ministry’s offices in Victoria. The ministry charges companies $14 for each form. When the completed forms are returned, public servants input dozens of pieces of information per manifest into computer spreadsheets.

But once the information is electronically stored, it is rare for it ever to be looked at again and rarer still for it to be analyzed. For example, the Straight published previous stories revealing how millions of litres of contaminated oil offloaded from cruise ships was unaccounted for. We later reported that more than ?10 million litres of hazardous wastes handled by Canada Petroleum Corporation had not been manifested. In both cases, the government’s data verified what was missing. But in neither case did materials supplied by the province to the Straight through freedom-of-information or verbal requests reveal that the ministry had ever once used its own data as a tool to investigate rogue companies.

Which brings us to the next point. In the five years ending in 2004, the same five-year period during which 210,000 vehicles were added to B.C.’s road network and industrial activities picked up in many sectors of the provincial economy, the amount of waste oil reported as moving through the province’s hazardous-waste tracking system declined. Despite a steady increase in oil use, the amount of waste oil reported as being moved hither and yon went down. According to government data analyzed by the Straight, the amount of waste oil listed for the year 2000 was ?90.8 million litres. Five years later, it had dropped five percent to ?86.3 million litres. In addition, many waste-oil shipment reports filed with the government were listed by weight, not volume. Here the drop is even more pronounced. In 2000, the waste-oil shipments reported by weight were 1.75 million kilograms. By 2004, that number had declined 19 percent to 1.41 million kilograms.

How could it be that more oil is used but the amount of waste oil that companies report handling and disposing has declined?

One strong possibility is that some waste handlers are doing what Canada Petroleum Corporation and Aqua Clean Ships, a cruise-ship service company, did before them. They are breaking the law and not filing the forms that they are legally required to because they believe they won’t get caught. They would be justified in thinking so. Between 1996 and 2003, the provincial government cut much of its staff responsible for monitoring waste handlers and enforcing environmental laws, explains Ron Dreidger, a former senior civil servant in the Environment Ministry who now works as executive ?director of the B.C. Used Oil Management Association (BCUOMA).

“There’s very few staff out there to do the checking. That’s no surprise. They don’t have the resources anymore to do the testing,” Dreidger told the Straight.

And that reality is not going unnoticed in the waste-management industry, according to Glenn Lundrigan, a senior employee with Safety-?Kleen, one of North America’s largest waste handlers. Lundrigan is branch manager at Safety-Kleen’s Langley office. The company collects large amounts of waste oil in B.C., then loads it onto railcars bound for an oil re-refinery it owns in Breslau in southern Ontario. The facility takes dirty used oil, cleans it, and then sells it back into the market as a product that competes with virgin lubricating oil. It is one of only two re-refineries in Canada. The other is owned and operated by Newalta Corp. and is located on the north shore of Burrard Inlet, just east of the Ironworkers Memorial Second Narrows Crossing bridge and not far from downtown Vancouver.

Lundrigan says that over the past few years he has witnessed a disturbing shift in attitude on the part of some waste generators and handlers. Companies used to want details on where their waste went and how it was treated. Some even insisted on audits to ensure that they were not exposed to legal risks. But that attitude “has diminished in the last three to four years”. Lundrigan would not comment on whether budget and staff cuts at the Ministry of Environment—cuts that eliminated 320 full-time positions in the ministry during the first three years of the provincial Liberal government’s mandate—explained the change in attitude. He did say, however, that with oil prices climbing in recent years and with the advent of recent regulatory changes “it has become more competitive for things like waste oil. And it seems to be more and more of an attitude of: ‘You’ve got my waste; it’s your problem.’?”

To understand how the attitude that Lundrigan decries set in, you have to go back more than a decade. Prior to 1992, sellers of oil were not required to take back the used product. Then in 1992, the province passed a new regulation. Dreidger had a direct hand in the initiative. The new regulation required the company selling the oil, or a proxy within a four-kilometre radius of the retailer, to take the used oil back at no cost to the consumer. Dreidger says the regulation was an improvement but had its problems. First, millions of oil containers and filters—hazards themselves—were not covered under the regulation. Second, companies that did a good job of complying with the regulation were saddled with big bills. The more used oil they took back, the more they paid someone to pick it up. Third, there were an awful lot of companies to track.

“From the ministry’s perspective, we had 4,000 retailers of oil,” Dreidger says. “It was a huge compliance-and-enforcement issue.”

These problems led the province in 2003 to change the regulation a second time.

The new regulation absolved retailers of responsibility for accepting used oil and arranging for its disposal and put the onus on the first seller, or “brand owner”, of the oil. The regulation also included oil containers and filters and required the companies that made the products and brought them into B.C.—Imperial Oil, Chevron, and others—to assume that responsibility. The companies could either file their own stewardship plans with the province or, as happened, band together and produce one plan. The regulation was silent on whether or not brand owners could charge an ecological fee or environmental handling charge to assist with pickup and disposal charges.

The brand owners ultimately formed BCUOMA in 2003, with Dreidger moving from government to the new entity as its executive director. Its board consists of members from Chevron Canada, Mr. Lube, Husky Oil, Canadian Tire, and the Canadian Petroleum Products Institute, which represents major oil and gas retailers in B.C. and elsewhere in Canada. To underwrite the costs of oil pickup, the brand owners agreed to pay fees on the oil, containers, and filters they sold. Consumers may or may not be aware that these fees are now embedded in the purchase price of these products. The fees work out to five cents per litre of oil, five cents per litre of container—the bigger the container, the bigger the fee—and 50 cents to a dollar for filters. In 2005, Dreidger says, some $10.8 million in such fees went to BCUOMA. BCUOMA then paid out more than $9 million in “return incentives” to companies approved by the province to pick up those materials.

Dreidger says that, overall, the program provides motivation to companies to bring used oil in rather than disposing of it illegally.

It also provides an incentive for the brand owners. Usman Valiante of the Corporate Policy Group, an Ontario company that analyzes government policies on hazardous wastes for various clients, including Safety-Kleen, notes that the brand owners are profiting under the new system.

How do brand owners benefit? Well, Valiante answers, consider what happens when a used-oil collector turns up at an Esso station. The collector actually pays Esso for its “waste” because in a world of rising oil prices, used oil has economic value. So much value, in fact, that in some cases collectors pay an Esso or Canadian Tire outlet more money than the brand owner initially paid in environmental handling fees to BCUOMA. On top of that, many brand owners charge additional fees to customers to cover the environmental “costs” of disposing of used oil and filters, even though the costs have already been covered in the environmental handling charges. To verify this, the Straight made two calls: one to an Esso outlet, the other to Mr. Lube. In the first case, a ?$4 “recycle levy” was charged for an oil and filter change. In the latter, a $2.99 “shop supply fee” was levied.

Meanwhile, companies like Safety-Kleen and Newalta operate in a system where there are built-in economic incentives to turn in as much waste oil as possible. And, both companies allege, that sometimes results in waste-oil collectors taking advantage of that situation to “bulk up” their used-oil shipments in order to cash in on the return incentives offered ?by BCUOMA and to increase their sales volumes to the ultimate end users. This is a problem because unscrupulous companies can do this and undercut their competitors on cost. Worse yet, waste oil is contaminated to begin with. Add more wastes to it and it becomes exceedingly difficult to treat and may actually damage ?expensive equipment in facilities such as re-refineries. Which is why both Safety-Kleen and Newalta pay added costs to screen the waste oil that they receive.

Lundrigan says that his company has rejected waste oil from some suppliers after samples revealed that mixing had occurred. Products mixed with waste oil may include waste gasoline, dirty diesel fuel, and other flammable products such as solvents. More often, however, the fact that mixing or bulking has occurred is inferred. “We’ll get word back from a customer and they’ll tell us that our quote is not competitive. And when we dig deeper the customer will tell us off the record that it’s because someone else has offered them a quote to take care of all of their burnable waste stream for one price.”

“It’s your problem” also seems an appropriate way to sum up Ottawa’s take on who bears regulatory responsibility for waste oil. Under the Canadian Environmental Protection Act, the federal government can place hazardous wastes onto a “priority substances list”. Once on it, such substances are subject to stringent controls. Many constituents in waste oil, such as PCBs, are on that list. But waste oil itself is not, even though the federal government reported in December 2002 that used waste oils “are entering the environment in a quantity or concentration or under conditions that have or may have an immediate or long-term harmful effect on the environment”.

Gary Webster, director of environment and technology for Newalta, also concurs that bulking up waste oil with other hazardous wastes is a problem. In a letter that Webster wrote to his counterpart at mining giant Noranda, and that Valiante cites in one of his reports, he complains that under used-oil management association incentive programs (associations exist in other Canadian provinces) there is “opportunity” to blend liquid wastes.

Hazardous “no value” wastes—wastes that it costs companies money to dispose of—are used to bulk up the waste oil whose collection is subsidized.

Making matters worse, Webster said, the associations that pay the incentives don’t, as a rule, have any “analytical protocols”. In other words, they do not perform tests on the waste oil to determine what is in it. Dreidger subsequently confirmed this, saying that it is the Ministry of Environment’s responsibility to do such testing. The Straight has asked and is still awaiting answers from the ministry about whether or not it conducts regular testing, and, if so, what that testing reveals.

By modern standards, Newalta’s North Vancouver oil re-refinery is a relatively small operation. But it remains a prime example of what can be achieved in environmental performance, because much of what comes into the facility exits as a product that is reused. Of the 36 million litres or so of used oil that ?arrive in North Vancouver annually, 24 million go back out as a base lubricating oil, much of it destined by rail for Federated Co-op in Regina. Another five million litres go out as blended and packaged premium engine lubricants, sold under private brands by companies such as Mohawk, 7-Eleven, Western Family, London Drugs, and Lordco. And three million litres or so leave the plant as a thick liquid, known as asphalt flux, that is one of the ingredients in roof shingles.

On a tour of the facility on a rain-splattered winter morning, the Straight saw how used oil brought onto the site is first stored in seven large white “day tanks”. The used oil in the tanks is then analyzed to ensure that it is not overly contaminated. Roy White, general manager of Newalta’s industrial division, said that about 10 percent of incoming used oil is rejected at this stage. Once the oil passes from the day tanks, water mixed in the oil is first removed. Then traces of gasoline and diesel fuel that have contaminated the oil as a result of engine parts degrading are removed through a process called vacuum distillation. The final stage in turning the used oil back to a new, reusable product involves “hydro-treating”. Here, the mixture passes through catalyst beds where hydrogen and high temperatures are introduced. This allows for the removal of such things as sulphur, benzene, and other contaminants that have been “grabbed” in the oil by additives. Without the additives, the oil could not properly protect the engine. Once the “dirt” that the additives catch and the additives themselves are removed, the final product is a clear, honey-coloured liquid—a far cry from the black, contaminant-laden product that arrived by tanker truck.

The facility, which Newalta purchased from Mohawk, opened in 1983 and was the first of its kind in North America. And at the time, White says, it was built to handle the equivalent of just about all of the waste oil then being generated in the province. Since then, the economy has grown. But North America’s four re-refineries have not kept pace. Over the ensuing two-plus decades, oil prices have also increased dramatically, to the point where used oil is more and more attractive as a heat source. And although companies like Newalta may be tempted to trot out “self-serving” arguments about how they take used oil to its “highest and best end use”, White says, the reality is that even they are taking some used oil and burning it.

“We’re not squeaky-clean,” White says, “because we use some of this [used oil] as a fuel. Some used oils simply can’t be re-refined because they are too contaminated.”

That doesn’t mean that more re-?refining could not occur, White added. But, he said, it becomes a public-policy issue. Does government want more of one of the most prevalent hazardous wastes out there to be reused rather than burned? If so, what is it prepared to do to make that happen?

what about BURNING used oil? How big an activity is it and how much of a potential environmental problem does it pose? Valiante claims that burning used oil is on the increase and that in the absence of rigorous oversight, the risk is high that other toxic products get added to the oil and then burned. The resultant emissions, he says, “are far worse” on a per-unit basis than burning coal.

It is very difficult to say, moreover, just how much used oil or bulked-up used oil is making its way into burners across B.C. The manifest system clearly shows a suspicious decline in the amount of contaminated oil that companies report transporting. That may mean that large amounts of it are being burned. And because it is unreported, it is difficult, if not impossible, for Ministry of Environment staff to monitor. BCUOMA recently commissioned a study to try to understand where a massive amount of “unaccounted-for” used oil was going. The April 2006 report pegged the amount of missing used oil at just under 19 million litres. About half of that—8.1 million litres—was estimated to be going to the “burner fuel” market.

The report estimated that there were at least 1,000 such burners in the province and stated that a “conservative” estimate put at least 100 of them in Greater Vancouver and Victoria. The burners, the report added, are used as heaters and are found in “small repair shops, car and truck dealerships, auto departments of retailers like Canadian Tire, and a wide variety of commercial and industrial operations like mills, mines and construction companies in their maintenance facilities and warehouses”.

Just what harmful contaminants in that burned oil make their way into the air we breathe is unknown. The Straight made requests of the ministry concerning the monitoring of burners but received no replies. However, organizations like the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency identify the improper burning of waste oil as a potential source of airborne particles that may be contaminated with known human carcinogens including lead, PCBs, and a host of polyaromatic hydrocarbons, or PAHs. “Breathing contaminated air” is among the more common ways for PAHs and other oil-borne contaminants to enter the body, the EPA warns, adding that “prolonged exposure…may cause cancer in humans.”

It stands to reason that the risks only increase in a laxly regulated regime in which some companies mix other toxic, burnable liquids with “waste oil” destined for the burner market. Or, worse yet, pump it into the sewer system or allow it to seep into the ground, a problem documented by Environment Ministry officials at the CPC site.

Shane Simpson, Vancouver-Hastings MLA and provincial environment critic, says he is concerned that the present system of reporting and tracking waste movements is badly flawed. And unless things change, he says, we may never know to what extent mixing and unregulated burning are occurring and just where a large volume of contaminated and burnable waste is going.

Forcing companies to pay for manifests is one problem, Simpson says. “It’s created a whole new tax, if you will. And the end result is some companies are loading as much stuff onto one manifest as they can.” Such manifests are known in the business as “multiple” manifests. The provincial database records them as such. But ask an Environment Ministry official what is actually on those manifests, and the only way they can tell you is to go back into the files and pull the paper copies. And there are literally tens of thousands of them.

A year and a half ago, when the Straight reported on the massive ?underreporting of hazardous wastes at the Canada Petroleum Corporation site, a senior Ministry of Environment official said that the ministry was considering moving to an electronic filing system. Such a system would allow for speedy filing by companies of manifest data and even speedier analysis of that data by public servants.

The change has yet to happen, and without it, Simpson says, “our ability to access records and track hazardous wastes is hopelessly compromised. In effect, we have no ability to audit or oversee the industry’s activities.”

More than a month ago, the Straight asked Environment Minister Barry Penner’s office a number of questions. How much was the cleanup bill at the Canada Petroleum Corporation site? Is the present system for reporting the movement of toxic wastes working? What happened to the idea of electronic filing? What does the ministry know about the mixing of toxic wastes? What does it know about where such wastes are burned?

In the intervening weeks, neither Penner nor his staff has called back or offered any written information.

No answers were forthcoming.

It seems, for now, that it is anybody’s guess.

LCBO thinking inside the box
Jul. 26, 2006. 06:12 AM
GORDON STIMMELL
GORD ON GRAPES

The mass conversion by the LCBO from bottles to Tetra Pak wine is hitting high gear. The idea is that this is environmentally friendly. In fact, these complex cartons are the toughest thing in your Blue Box to recycle and one of the most expensive to process.

The LCBO took five days to get back to me with an answer when I asked where its wine Tetra Paks are being recycled. I found it strange that the monopoly pushing this huge program so hard could not come up with an immediate answer. If a clean, local, well-run recycling system existed in Ontario, I am sure the LCBO would be running buses of journalists out to view it. Well, it isn't.

The latest development is the LCBO-mentored opening of a spiffy new Tetra Pak manufacturing plant in Richmond Hill to keep pace with its artificially generated demand. The LCBO did run a press bus out to this grand opening. A second plant is slated to open in Niagara in the fall to handle tanker-loads of foreign vino being packaged as "Cellared in Canada" wine.

Tetra Paks have three main ingredients: paperboard, polyethylene plastic, aluminum foil. To break them down, you need a pulp mill, which soaks them in water, then shreds them. The plastic and aluminum is deposited as a sludge. Little of the paper actually gets recycled, but what does goes into such things as toilet paper.

The used Tetras that are recycled make it to Michigan, where there are two plants to process them. But top environmentalists believe most Tetras are still winding up as garbage in Michigan landfill.

The Tetra Pak initiative brilliantly diverts attention away from recycling glass. The LCBO has resisted fiercely for years the idea of a deposit on wine bottles, which works so well at our beer stores.

As it stands now, different coloured glass bottles too often get broken up in the Blue Box process, cross-contaminating them so they become recyclable only for such things as fodder for roadbeds.

Entering an LCBO store is beginning to resemble an Easter egg hunt or a visit to a Chuck E. Cheese balloon party, what with all the coloured, glitzy, tinfoil cartons decked out in fun, Day-Glo colours. Over the last month or so, 17 new boxed wines hit shelves, including the first ever from an Ontario winery.

Recently, I spent a very sober Saturday carefully tasting all 17 with friends, one by one, nursing the vain hope that one would rise above mediocrity, or even perhaps be good. It was a crushing experience. And I am certain that pouring these wines down the sink later was not so wonderful for the environment.

OUT OF THE BOX: The first Ontario winery to launch is Lakeview Cellars, with four Out of the Box wines priced at $12.95 a litre. I find an honest irony in the words in small print on the carton: "Recyclable — where facilities exist." Lakeview produces some fine Ontario wines, but these are not. They are substandard-tasting leftover wines from other countries trucked into Ontario and packaged here.

Tellingly, Out of the Box wines are all non-vintage, which means they can blend different years together. This would account for the old, oxidized flavours (dried dates, figs) of the Cabernet Sauvignon and its aromas of salty potato chips and cheesies. The Sauvignon Blanc has a peanuts aroma (like ladybug-infested wines) with a sour cider vinegar smell and a bitter finish. The Merlot is better, but tasted cooked, like stewed prunes. The Chardonnay has a nice pear aroma, but the flavours are weak and quickly died.

Not an auspicious beginning. Other Ontario wineries are soon coming out with their own boxes, including Pelee Island Winery, Colio Estate Wines and Vincor International (with its Sawmill Creek line going into Tetras). None of these will be 100 per cent Ontario grape wines with VQA labels.
In fact, VQA executive director Laurie McDonald is cautious, even though the LCBO has been pressing for 100 per cent Ontario wines to migrate over to Tetras. "VQA regulations say glass only, but we are doing research on the Tetras," says McDonald. "We want to assess oxygen and ageability factors associated with the package."

McDonald adds: "A big issue is the image of quality, in consumers' minds. The second issue for us is do we need `best before' dates on such packages if we ever do agree industry wide to try the Tetras."

BOTTER FAMILY: Italians love big families, right? So the Botter family has come out with Tetras replete with their first names and caricatures of their faces on three new 2005 wines made from organic grapes. Each is $12.85 a litre.

The "Anna" Pinot Grigio Chardonnay is the best, with mellow pear and bubblegum traits. The "Alex" Marche region Sangiovese is puckery, with stewed, sweetish plum flavours. The "Luca" Nero d'Avola from Sicily tastes of sour cherries, figs and bitter wood. A fellow taster opined: "I swear I've had cough syrup that tasted like this."

SOLUNA: Italian producer Lamberti has two new boxed wines from the Venezie region. The 2004 Merlot has a brownish tinge and tastes a bit oxidized, reminiscent of dried figs, prunes and barnyard. The 2005 Pinot Grigio is dominated by floral musk, some melon and sour green, unripe pear — not pleasant. Each is $12.95 a litre.

BANROCK STATION: A few Tetras feature wines, such as Banrock Station, that have long been on shelves in bottle. Their quality tends to be better.

From Oz, Banrock Station 2004 Shiraz has nice cloves, black cherry and cedar dimensions, and is quite drinkable, but not great. Banrock Station 2005 Unwooded Chardonnay sports tropical crushed pineapple, melon and mango flavours, and a hint of sweet apple on the end. The Banrock Station 2005 Cabernet Sauvignon shows decent blackberry, cherry skins and cedar notes, also quite quaffable. The chard is $12.60 a litre, the reds $13.90 each.

A word of caution: these Tetras are messy and can glub suddenly all over your nice tablecloth. A picnic table is a preferred venue.

ALICE WHITE: Also from Down Under, Alice White 2005 Semillon Chardonnay has minerals, floral lemon and pear flavours, but is a tad green tasting. Alice White 2005 Cabernet Shiraz has black cherry and pomegranate flavours and is a bit skunky. Neither is near as nice as Banrock's wines. These come in 500-millilitre Tetra Prisma Paks, at $7.95 each.

VENDANGE: The California line of these I have reviewed before, but the 2005 Pinot Grigio is new and at least drinkable. It shows mild pear and apple spice with a bit of greenness. One of my fellow tasters commented: "It isn't awful! It's just not very good." It's $6.95 for a 500-millilitre.

RABBIT: Added to the Boisset line hopping around on shelves are two reserve-level wines. I was hoping for a lovely white to make up for its regular weak-kneed Rabbit Chardonnay in a box, which one taster dissed as: "This wine is so not there." Now, "Family Reserve" traditionally means, in the wine world, the very best lots reserved by the family for their personal consumption.

French Rabbit Family Reserve White tastes like it is blended from leftover lots after the good stuff went to regular bottles. I was hoping to see redemption to account for the $17.95 a litre. A blend of chardonnay, viognier, sauvignon blanc, marsanne roussanne and muscat grapes, this reeks of honeysuckle, peach, musk and rose petals, and has a very sour end, like biting into an unripe white peach. A neighbour said it simply: "I don't call this wine."

The French Rabbit Reserve Red, also $17.95 and non-vintage, blends syrah, merlot, pinot noir, cabernet sauvignon, grenache and mourvedre grapes in an assemblage that tastes bitter, like sour cherry, blackberry seeds and leathery plum. My neighbour summed it up with: "Tastes like a dishrag after you've cleaned up the spilt red wine." I found that the fruit stops, but the bitterness lingers long afterward.

If these boxed wines are the best that wineries can do, after the LCBO put out its massive call to producers in all countries to start the Tetra theatrics, we are in big trouble. There's only so much shelf space, no matter how you stack it. And many really wonderful wines in bottle are going to vanish as a result.

Without reproducing the environment ministry's description in its entirety, the EPRS model involves the “producer” (manufacturer, brand-owner or first importer) or a voluntarily convened collective of producers establishing a self- or third-party operated management system for spent products. All costs of the system are to be borne by the producers (though there would be a natural tendency to try to diffuse costs through the product chain) and all arrangements between producers (i.e., cost allocation) and service providers (i.e., charges for service) would be negotiated and set via commercial agreements and contracts. Ministry approval of an EPRS would require details of the system’s operation and regular reporting of the final disposition of wastes to the ministry (very important to be sure).

Back in my March 13th blog post Wither EPR?, I described such a property-rights-based model for end-of-life product management. To save you looking for it, here is what I wrote in context of a notional EPR program for waste TVs:

“What about the formation and operation of a Producer Responsibility Organization (PRO) for waste TVs? What about the 'funding mechanism' (i.e., fee scheme) for collecting and processing TVs to the 'environmental standard'? What about all the regulatory and bureaucratic clap-trap that normally accompanies 'stewardship' programs?

In a property-rights-based regulatory approach, all of these things are immaterial to the regulator. The producers -- the waste TV title holders -- sort themselves out to meet the environmental standard in managing their wastes. Producers could band together in a collective (e.g., Electronic Product Stewardship Canada -- EPSC comes to mind) to manage their wastes (much as electronic producers do to create technical standards for CDs, DVDs etc.). Like any other aspect of business, contractual obligations and charges for covering the costs of administration, collection and recycling services are the subject of commercial negotiations between producers (or the producer collective) and service providers -- what prices are actually established are also irrelevant to the regulator.”

Well as I read it this is exactly what the ministry is proposing with its EPRS model – right here in Ontario: home of the infamous Waste Diversion Ontario!

Whoa there! WDO! What about the WDO? Well my guess is if enacted EPRS is going to cure what is ailing reuse and recycling in Ontario – the WDO.

How so? Consider that under the Waste Diversion Act “stewards” can set up Industry Stewardship Plans (ISPs) outside of an approved Industry Funding Organization (IFO) program – imagine a fast food chain setting up a packaging management system independent of the approved Blue Box program via an ISP (but only after having suffered through being part of the collective blue box program). Well, the EPRS proposal goes one step further by effectively saying producers can set up a program entirely outside of the WDO.

Now ask yourself why any producer or group of producers would want to be forced to work in an Industry Funding Organization not of their choosing? Who wants to run the WDO Board gauntlet to try to get their stewardship program approved when they could deal directly with policymakers and endure a relatively clear and simple approval process? Can someone remind me why it makes sense to have the soft drink industry, beer industry, consumer packaging users, retailers, the LCBO and newspaper industry vote on whether to approve a program on scrap tires or household hazardous/special wastes when we have folks in the Ontario Public Service well qualified to do just that?

While it might make sense for the Stewardship Ontario to remain under the Waste Diversion Act so it can continue to enjoy a 50 per cent discount on blue box services, where is the impetus for any other steward to hang around the WDO? Who really wants to cover the WDO’s administrative costs and help pay back the packaging brand-owners their $600K+ loan to the WDO? If you had to be regulated would you not pick the least troublesome and least costly regulatory option?

So all that has to happen is that the environment ministry designates a waste under the EPA or WDA and producers can pick how they go. My bet is that they go the EPRS route.

In the last few months a prototype EPRS type program for fluorescent tubes has been convened by the Recycling Council of Ontario which involves the Toronto District School Board (the waste generator), two fluorescent tube manufacturers and Fluorescent Lamp Recyclers Inc. The approvals for operating the waste management system were graciously expedited by the ministry and took only a few months to complete. The program will be up and running in September.

All those in favor of EPRS write in to the Minister early and write to her often – The EBR comment period ends on September 18th.

One of the most heated exchanges occurred between myself and Lyle Clark -- a representative of the Liquor Control Board of Ontario (LCBO) -- who was supported in his statements by a couple of audience members who work directly or indirectly for Tetra Pak. Certain statements I made were questioned and dismissed as “pure fantasy” by the LCBO and Tetra Pak people. They’re entitled to their opinion, of course, but I said at the conference that I’d post some documents in this space in support of my assertions, which I didn’t have handy at the conference.

The gist of my statement was that the LCBO’s real agenda in selling more wines in Tetra-Paks (as opposed to glass bottles) is a commercial one not an environmental one.

Specifically, I asserted that the LCBO’s commercial agenda was to bring in cheap wine in bulk (directly itself or via “partners” such as French Rabbit -- a brand that did not exist until it was first listed in the LCBO), package that wine in Tetra-Paks and sell it as “premium” wine in order to reap enormous profits. (It’s worth noting that LCBO executives are given bonuses based on the LCBO’s financial performance.)

The denial of the LCBO representative was vehement.

In support of my claim, I offer some documents. (For your convenience, these are posted as downloadable pdf files under Posted Documents on the left side of the home page at www.solidwastemag.com):

1. 2005 Deloitte-Touche Operational Review of the LCBO

The first attachment is an excerpt from a copy of the 2005 Deloitte-Touche Operational Review of the LCBO. In my opinion, it’s quite “puffy” in tone, touts the LCBO and puts forth an LCBO policy “wish-list” (which is not surprising given that the consultants worked closely with LCBO management in preparing it). For our purposes here, what are notable are the recommendations on Page 12, two of which are significant:

-- The first relates to pricing: that the LCBO be granted the power to apply differential or variable mark-ups on products at its discretion (a trade illegal practice that was suspended by the Ontario government as a result of a GATT challenge from Europe in the early 1990s which challenged LCBO listing policies, winery retail store licenses, etc.).

-- The second relates to the development of LCBO “private-label products” or house brands which would mean that it would not only be wholesaler and retailer but further extend its quasi-monopoly into becoming a manufacturer/brand-owner.

2. Ontario Tetra Pak Facilities press release and LCBO/WCO alternative packaging letter

In its Ontario Tetra Pak Facilities press release, the LCBO announces that it is “sponsoring” two Tetra-Pak co-packing facilities to, “…to package wine from Ontario and around the world.”

In combination with the other documents, the agenda behind the LCBO's Tetra Pak initiative is clear. This isn't about improved environmental performance, and it isn’t even about avoiding a deposit-refund system, or avoiding blue box fees (although those might be side benefits). This is about the LCBO creating a new wine category that is highly profitable for it. The LCBO is shifting from being a distributor and vendor of wines into being producer of sorts -- stage managing the bulk import of wine and coordinating the packaging of it in Tetra Paks, and then selling the wine in Ontario with enormous margins.

This shift raises important policy issues for the government and for wine producers. Do we want this monopoly wholesale and retail entity now engaging in this kind of activity? What of the impact of the LCBO’s “abuse of dominance” to Ontario wine producers? As an aside, it’s worth thinking about the fact that the LCBO says that French Rabbit in Tetra Paks was the most successful launch in its history – not surprising given the LCBO’s heavy subsidization of the launch. Why did the Ontario government’s sanctioned wine and spirit vendor invest in the launch of a foreign wine and not an Ontario product and why is the LCBO now allowed to engage in heavy employee and consumer inducements to keep pushing French Rabbit now that its sales volumes have tanked? The implications are chilling for Ontario producers.)

Whether or not policymakers approve of the LCBO’s new commercial plan, it seems to me that it’s ridiculous for the LCBO to deny that this is going on.

Consider that these proposed Tetra Pak facilities will package imported bulk wines (in addition to local products). Under the federal Importation of Intoxicating Liquors Act the LCBO must be the import agent, which means that it is the de facto brand-owner of the imported bulk wine. The LCBO is more than a little conflicted here.

It’s my contention that the Tetra Pak program is not about protecting the environment, but rather that environmental protection (as is often the case in our society) is being used as a “fig leaf” for the LCBO’s commercial agenda, which is sponsorship of the production of products that will become its “house brands.” This is analogous to those “private label” soft drinks and other items you see in grocery stores, such as Loblaws’ “Presidents Choice” line of products. These afford the grocery chain higher profit margins at the expense of national brands. This is good and well in the world of supermarkets, but we really must pause and reflect upon the implications of a government-sanctioned monopoly for liquor engaging in this.

Again, this relates to the “private-label” recommendation in the documents. If the LCBO also has complete discretion in how these bulk imported wines are marked-up for sale (the “pricing” recommendation) they will be enormously profitable -- bought at low bulk prices and shipped over in container ships, likely in large “bladders” the size of a tractor-trailer container, poured into Tetra Paks and marked-up as "premium" wines. Note the LCBO’s ongoing communications positioning Tetra Paks as a “premium package” and the conditions (in the 3rd attachment’s last paragraph) being placed on listing new wine products by Ontario vintners. Essentially the LCBO is telling local producers that if they want their new products put on shelves, put them in Tetra Paks. Otherwise, you can only add a new product by taking an old one off the shelf.

For Ontario wine producers this should be highly alarming. The LCBO will have an economic incentive to give preferential treatment (more and better shelf space in its stores) to its imported bulk products. Even if Ontario producers choose Tetra Paks, they will have to be price competitive with bulk wine imported cheaply and sold as premium wine. Ontario wine producers already face competition from low cost and highly subsidized producers such as those in South America. There is in fact a global glut of wine production. Now they’ll potentially face direct competition from their own local liquor monopoly!

This agenda to drive subsidized imported wines will have some very serious implications to Ontario wine producers. Of note is Deloitte Touch’s disclaimer on page 3: “..the potentially largest opportunities are related to pricing, product costs and vendor funding which have significant policy implications which are beyond the scope of this review.”

Who looked at the economic and environment “policy implications” prior to the LCBO embarking on this initiative, and is anybody going to?

Whatever happens, I leave it to readers (and delegates from the MWIN conference) to read the documents and decide for themselves whether my description of the LCBO’s commercial agenda is plausible or “pure fantasy” on my part, as was alleged at the conference.

My last entry was regarding "Explicit Property Rights" as a model for regulating wastes associated with products. The legislative bill to establish Minnesota's Electronic Recycling Act 2006 provides an interesting model of just such an approach. Here is an excerpt:

...a manufacturer must comply with the following requirements:
(a) A manufacturer must annually recycle or arrange for the collection and recycling of an amount equal to the percentage of the total weight of covered electronic devices sold by the manufacturer during the preceding program year, as established by the agency under section 115A.1320, subdivision 1.
(b) The obligations of a manufacturer apply only to covered electronic devices received from households and do not apply to covered electronic devices received from owners other than households.
(c) A manufacturer must conduct and document due diligence assessments of collectors and recyclers it contracts with to insure that all collectors and recyclers comply with the requirements of subdivision 2. A manufacturer is responsible for documentation that all covered electronic devices recycled in downstream recycling operations comply with the requirements of subdivision 2.

Subd. 2. Recycler’s responsibilities. (a) A recycler must provide evidence to a manufacturer that the recycler has complied with the following directives with respect to covered electronic devices collected from households:
(1) all solid and hazardous waste generated from recycling covered electronic devices must be managed and processed in North America or a member county of the European Union;
(2) all circuit boards must be managed for metals recovery and processed in a smelter in North America or a member county of the European Union;
(3) any refurbishment or repair of covered electronic devices must take place in North America;
(4) all recycling facilities must possess:
(i) liability insurance of no less than $1 million for releases, accidents and other emergencies;
(ii) all licenses from applicable governing authorities;
(iii) up-to-date written plans for: environmental health and safety training for employees, hazardous materials identification and management, and reporting and responding to releases and other emergencies;
(iv) a plan for closure and a financial guarantee;
(b) Except to the extent otherwise required by law, a recycler has no responsibility for any data that may be on a covered electronic device if an information storage device is included with the device.

A clear example of a conceptual approach which allocates end-of-life property rights to manufacturers and sets out standards for the exchange and management of those rights. It isn't exactly the way I might go about implementing it but the model is there.

More on end-of-life standards next before I visit issues related to "historic" and "orphan" waste and design for the environment (DFE).

Download the Minnesota draft E-waste bill

It seems to me that the overriding messages from the conference could be paraphrased as, "...Extended Producer Responsibility is a good theory but impractical...", moreover, "...if one of the goals of EPR is to promote design for the environment it isn't working...", and "...there are no true EPR programs in Canada because in practice the requirements are too complicated and onerous...". To hear it, EPR is not an acronym for Extended Producer Responsibility but for Extremely Pedantic Rhetoric.

Extended Producer Responsibility isn't well understood (and I say this notwithstanding those waving accreditations from institutions of received wisdom and shrilly protesting otherwise). As commonly discussed the concept of EPR is unclear (and its obscure and inaccurate naming doesn't help either). Take this classic OECD definition of EPR.

"EPR extends the traditional environmental responsibilities that producers and distributors have previously been assigned (i.e. worker safety, prevention and treatment of environmental releases from production, financial and legal responsibility for the sound management of production wastes) to include management at the post-consumer stage."

Widely cited (I am as guilty as anyone) and oft repeated, this definition offers little about what EPR really is and nothing about how it should work in practice. In my mind this definition causes more confusion than it alleviates.

So I'm going to abandon the unfortunate EPR moniker and turn to alternative language to describe a way of regulating the environmental burdens associated with products and services. That is, language that describes the rights to possess and transfer property - the language of property rights.

Let's skip as much of the legal and economic jargon as we can and go right to a practical environmental example.

A manufacturer produces cathode ray tube (CRT) TVs which are distributed and eventually retailed to consumers. The government determines that the TVs generate environmental burdens at the end of their useful life (i.e. lead contamination) and that those burdens warrant some form of intervention (i.e. regulation) to reduce them to some acceptable level (the "environmental standard").

In a property rights based regulatory approach the government states through regulation that while the title to a TV transfers from producer, to distributor/retailer to consumer as it passes down through the supply chain, the title to the TV immediately reverts back to the producer (or first importer) at the end of the TV's useful life.

The producer may then transfer title to the "waste" TV to a third party (i.e. a waste collector) and the third party to a recycler but only if the transfers can be tracked from beginning to end and can be shown to result in the TV being finally managed to the "environmental standard" (i.e. the transactions are environmentally accountable and transparent).

Any producer (or first importer) that fails to take title of its TVs at their end-of-life and meet the environmental standard in managing them loses its right to transfer (i.e. sell) new TV's to consumers.

That is it. Finis.

But wait! What about the formation and operation of a Producer Responsibility Organization (PRO) for waste TVs? What about the "funding mechanism" (i.e. fee scheme) for collecting and processing TVs to the "environmental standard"? What about all the regulatory and bureaucratic clap-trap that normally accompanies "stewardship" programs?

In a property rights based regulatory approach all of these things are immaterial to the regulator. The producers - the waste TV title holders - sort themselves out to meet the environmental standard in managing their wastes. Producers could band together in a collective (i.e. Electronic Product Stewardship Canada - EPSC comes to mind) to manage their wastes (much as electronic producers do to create technical standards for CDs, DVDs etc.). Like any other aspect of business, contractual obligations and charges for covering the costs of administration, collection and recycling services are the subject of commercial negotiations between producers (or the producer collective) and service providers - what prices are actually established are also irrelevant to the regulator.

But what about the often asked question of program "funding" - i.e. fees and "who pays"? In such a system a collective established by producers will have to assign the costs of administering and paying for collection and processing of producer wastes back to the members of the collective. The cost allocation formula will have to be negotiated amongst the members of the collective. Since the collective is a combine of producers, established by producers for producers, it will not have any government assigned power to levy fees from retailers or consumers. That said, the collective could pass on program costs by entering into an arrangement with retailers / first importers to accept program costs that have been converted to a system of fixed product levies or fees (obviously, with the understanding that the fees will be passed down to the consumer). Of course, such an arrangement of "fixing" recycling prices amongst producers and having retailers agree to pass them on to consumers would be subject to scrutiny by the Competition Bureau.

What have I described above? Well, in a nutshell something that looks very much like the requirements of British Columbia's Recycling Regulation. Not surprisingly, I've heard some describe BC's requirements as "too open" and not providing necessary specifics regarding governance and financing structures necessary to create - and consider the use of the term here in the context of the preceding paragraph - a "level playing field".

So while EPR as "Extended Producer Responsibility" might be better described as "Explicit Property Rights" I suspect some would be much happier with EPR were it to mean "Extremely Prescriptive Regulation".

Over the next couple of weeks I’m going to discuss the Explicit Property Rights model in the context of the sexiest “stewardship” issue going – waste electronics. Specifically, I’m going to talk about the treatment of "historic" and "orphan" waste and design for the environment (DFE) outcomes. Stay tuned.

With fresh references to Environment Canada and cites to officials from the western UOMA programs the document diligently reproduces the received wisdom and glowing reports of the efficiency and effectiveness of UOMA style used oil material programs. The fact that Waste Diversion Ontario (WDO) rejected a UOMA program is given one passing footnote, "In 2004, Ontario voted down a proposal for a similar program in that province." (Say, isn't Ontario Canada's largest province?)

No mention is made of the fact that the WDO's rejection of a UOMA style program was based on long deliberations that resulted in the following determinations.

1. “The program plan does not include economic mechanisms to promote 3Rs, consistent with WDA (Waste Diversion Act) S.1, and to not promote burning, consistent with WDA S.25(2), so that implementation of the Plan would result in more Used Oil Material being directed to 3Rs than burning, all other marketplace influences being equal

3. The quantity of Used Oil Material to be collected through implementation of the Plan is identified in the 5 Year Recovery Objectives outlined in the Plan. The quantity managed through the 3Rs in each year is not identified.”

You would have thought that such a critical assessment of a UOMA program by Canada’s largest jurisdiction (with an extremely effective pre-existing used oil material recovery system) might have been deemed pertinent to the evaluation of the economic effect of UOMA program design. And it might have figured in the RFF work had someone from Canada provided it to the researcher at RFF (I did, but only belatedly after I got a hold of the draft document which I had not known existed before I received it).

Alas, it would seem that Environment Canada did not provide such dissenting information to RFF. Why? Well one can only guess but you might want to read an earlier work on the subject - Environment Canada's 2004 "analysis" of Alberta's UOMA program (again, duly received and published by the unwitting folks at the OECD). One might suspect that it is probably easier to dismiss Ontario's dissent than admit that under all that sugar coating is a rotten lemon (and that you helpd to sell many bushels of those lemons without really checking what it was you were selling).

The full cite of Environment Canada's tribute to the Alberta UOMA program is, Vanderpol, Michael. 2004. “Economic and Environmental Performance of Alberta’s Used Oil Programme,” in Economic Aspects of Extended Producer Responsibility (Paris: OECD).

You might then read my October 2005 crtique of the UOMA Program Review for what it means to dig a little deeper.

The exchange between the US affiliate of the RBRC and I following publication of the article below can be found at:
http://www.hazmatmag.com/posted_documents/letters/0299a.asp

HazMat Magazine,  December/January 1999

Feature
Batteries Not Included
Short circuiting rechargeable Ni-Cd policy By Usman Valiante

According to the US EPA, nickel-cadmium (Ni-Cd) rechargeable batteries comprise less than 0.1 per cent of municipal solid waste by weight but account for 75 per cent of its cadmium content. With increasing consumption of rechargeable Ni-Cd batteries, governments worldwide have either enacted, or are in the process of enacting, public policy measures to address the end-of-life stage of the battery lifecycle.

For example, Sweden has proposed a complete ban on the sale of Ni-Cd batteries. Belgium is targeting batteries not recycled at a rate of at least 75 per cent with a 33 cent tax. Fifteen American states have enacted some form of legislation to address cadmium-containing batteries. With other US states and Canadian provinces planning to regulate consumer batteries, industry has launched a pre-emptive strike by developing its own recycling initiative for Ni-Cd batteries.

Established in the US early in 1996, the Rechargeable Battery Recycling Corporation (RBRC) announced its launch into Ontario in September 1997. Headquartered in Gainsville, Florida, the RBRC is the operating arm of the Portable Rechargeable Battery Association (PRBA). PRBA is an industry sponsored government relations organization largely tasked with manufacturing consent within state and federal environmental regulatory bodies regarding the issue of Ni-Cd battery waste management. Prior to establishing the RBRC, the PRBA operated Ni-Cd recycling initiatives for several years in the US (including comprehensive retail-to-return programs in Minnesota and New Jersey). In Canada, the PRBA's function is also fulfilled by the RBRC, though its primary roles are to collect licensee funds from participating battery manufacturers and administer rechargeable Ni-Cd battery recycling programs.

In Ontario, the "Charge Up to Recycle!" program is at the forefront of the RBRC's government relations activities. To support its contention that its program is comprehensive, RBRC claims an impressive network of affiliated business partners including Canadian Tire, Radio Shack, Zellers, Black's Photography, Astral Photo Images, and Battery Plus. These retailers provide a potential of 2,000 return outlets for collecting batteries voluntarily returned by consumers.
However, if the results of the RBRC's activities in the United States over the last two and half years of full-scale operation (and 6 years of comprehensive pilot programs) are any indication of what lies in store for Ontario and other provinces, there's cause for concern.

Conflicting data

In the 1998 year-end edition of State Recycling Laws Update, chief RBRC lobbyist Robert Guyer claims that 22 per cent of small sealed rechargeable Ni-Cd batteries were recycled in the US in 1997--an increase of 15 per cent over 1996. Conflicting with this claim is a June 1997 US EPA report entitled, Extended Producer Responsibility: A New Principle for Product-Oriented Pollution Prevention in which the RBRC reported its 1996 recycling rate as 25 per cent.
In the same EPA report, the RBRC provided data indicating that in 1995 it had sent 1,352 tons of Ni-Cd batteries for recycling. Meanwhile, INMETCO--the sole North American recycler of Ni-Cd batteries and the only destination of RBRC-collected batteries--reported receiving 2,500 tons of batteries from all sources, including industrial and commercial (IC&I) waste generators. This is significant because prior to the RBRC initiative most American IC&I generators already had Ni-Cd battery management programs in place. (Disposing Ni-Cd batteries in municipal landfills is prohibited in most US states). With the advent of RBRC, batteries previously sent directly for recycling or proper disposal by IC&I generators are now largely sent to RBRC consolidation points where they are counted as RBRC diverted quantities.

What does this mean? Simply stated, it's quite likely that most of the 2,500 tons recycled by INMETCO originated from IC&I generators. Of the 1,352 tons of RBRC batteries diverted in 1995, it's likely that little was new diversion (e.g., consumer returns to retailers) and resulted instead from ICI generators channeling existing quantities through the RBRC system. Since the RBRC picks up all costs subsequent to shipping batteries to their consolidation point, any increases in recovered batteries in the near future will likely result from an increase in IC&I generators re-channeling their batteries to the RBRC system in order to lower their costs. (The recycling alone costs about US$800 per ton.)

Consider Minnesota, where state legislation required that 90 per cent of sealed Ni-Cd batteries had to be recovered by September 20, 1995. In anticipation, the PRBA commenced a pilot program in 1992. Three years later, of the 80,984 pounds of Ni-Cd batteries received between October 1994 and September 1995, only 3.8 per cent came from retail stores while 77.4 per cent came from IC&I generators. (The remaining 18.9 per cent originated from municipal hazardous waste collection programs). Similarly, in 1995, 92 per cent of Ni-Cd batteries recovered in New Jersey (which has had return-to-retail since 1992) were from ICI sources while only 7 per cent originated from retailers.

Two years later, the national trend seems to have taken a sharp turn. According to Ralph Millard, Executive Vice-President of the RBRC, a full 23 per cent of Ni-Cd batteries recovered through the U.S. RBRC program in 1997 were recovered from retailers.

However, another indicator that RBRC is not expecting significant returns from retailers is the fact that across all of North America it has only four consolidation points to which battery collectors can ship waste batteries. These are: Phillip Services in Fort Erie, Ontario; Toxco/Kinsbursky in California; Wade Salvage in New Jersey; and US Filter and Recovery in Minnesota. (Batteries may also be shipped directly to the INMETCO recycling facility in Pennsylvania).
Why would the RBRC structure the program the way it has? It has a strong incentive. For relatively little effort, fairly reasonable diversion rates were perceived to be achieved in short order. Furthermore, while retailer shipping costs are fully subsidized by the RBRC, IC&I generators must pay for shipment of their batteries to consolidation facilities (which then send batteries to INMETCO). Since the IC&I generators bear their own shipping costs to RBRC consolidation points, the costs of subsidizing retailers (who get virtually no returns) and municipalities (who get some) is relatively small; this keeps RBRC product manufacturer licensee fees low and retailers happy.

Battery powered spin

Another indicator that retailers (specifically grocery retailers--which have a significant share of the consumer battery market) will not figure prominently in accepting returns in Ontario is the fact that the RBRC shares its key Ontario government relations and marketing staff with the Food and Consumer Products Manufacturers of Canada (FCPMC). This group has a long history of opposing any producer responsibility models (including those for beverage containers and motor oil) that involve retailer participation.

The nature and effectiveness of RBRC's Ni-Cd battery recycling programs contrast strongly with another industry sponsored battery recycling initiative--the industry-wide manufacturer controlled network (MCN) for recycling automotive lead-acid batteries. Where Ni-Cd batteries are costly to recycle, automotive lead-acid batteries are a valuable commodity. As a result, lead-acid battery manufacturers initiate a $5 deposit (about double the value of a used battery and is euphemistically referred to as a "fee") which is passed on to distributors and subsequently to retailers and consumers. Consumers buying a new battery at, say, Canadian Tire are not levied the $5 "fee" if they leave their old battery behind. Similarly, Canadian Tire doesn't pay the battery distributor any fee if its order for new batteries is accompanied by an equivalent return shipment of used batteries.

This sensible system is employed widely in the United States. An audited report by Battery Council International (an industry association) states that the US achieved a 94.9 per cent average recycling rate for automotive lead-acid batteries over the 1990-95 period. Lead-acid battery recycling rates in Ontario are reported to be even higher--about 99 per cent annually.

Such a system could work well for Ni-Cd batteries and Ontario's government has created a framework for just such an industry-operated MCN via its proposed amendments to Regulation 347 (General Waste). Designed to essentially take government out of the waste management loop, the environment ministry's proposal would have provided a regulatory foundation for establishing systems for recovering a wide variety of wastes analogous (if not identical) to the system for recycling lead-acid automotive batteries.

In its response to Ontario's proposed MCN regulation the RBRC has suggested some subtle key word changes which suggest a deviation from the widely accepted intent of MCNs.

Specifically, RBRC suggests that it be designated as the "original product manufacturer" and act as a proxy for the true original product manufacturer (thereby assuming responsibility for final disposition of recovered batteries). As the proxy, the RBRC would bear the right to engage its agents (e.g., a waste management company) in activities other than product stewardship; in the RBRC's words, "or other contract or agreement for used product management services." Though not explicitly stated, this assertion likely includes landfill of recovered batteries.

This is especially plausible given that the RBRC provides the following rationale: "Depending on market conditions, spent product may be managed in various ways." Clearly, given the costs of consolidating and shipping Ni-Cd batteries for recycling to Pennsylvania (INMETCO) and that Ni-Cd batteries are not banned from landfill in Ontario, it's quite likely that Ni-Cds collected through RBRC's program will be sent to hazardous waste landfills. Such an effort would be consistent with the current practice of sending virtually all batteries collected through municipal hazardous waste programs to landfill. (Yes, you read correctly.)

In order to avoid take-back regulations, Sweden's battery industry initiated a voluntary Ni-Cd battery recycling program in 1993. Committed to recovering 90 per cent of Ni-Cd batteries sold by the summer of 1995, the program failed when it was unable to surpass a recovery rate of 35 per cent. This prompted the government to consider a ban on the sale of Ni-Cd batteries. (It's worth noting that RBRC's Ontario initiative cannot "fail" since it is not committed to any targets.)

While the RBRC's "Charge up to Recycle!" program makes all of the right noises, it lacks a meaningful approach to actually increase diversion, measure results or meet its design objectives, which were to "preserve natural resources and prevent Ni-Cd rechargeable batteries from entering the solid waste stream." With a little less resistance this program could be easily transformed from a high voltage government relations program into a high amp model of producer responsibility.

Of course energy efficient lighting promises to relive our demand for electricity. Specifically the goal is to reduce our dependence on coal-fired electricity which releases significant amounts of mercury upon combustion.

But how ironic would it be if we reduced coal-fired generation by using fluorescent bulbs only to release mercury to environment as those bulbs are sent to landfill (or incinerated) at their end-of-life? Clearly, we need to be thinking about a closed loop recovery system now.

Well the Recycling Council of Ontario (RCO) is doing just that and is starting by addressing long fixture type fluorescent lamps used in the Industrial, Commercial and Institutional (IC&I) sector. In May of 2005, the RCO and the Grand Erie District School Board (GEDSB) in partnership with Florescent Lamp Recyclers (FLR - a recycler), participated in a pilot project to recovery and recycle spent florescent lamps. In total, 5968 lamps were collected of which 958 were recovered through random replacement methods and 5010 through retrofits. In all 18,000 mg of mercury was recovered. (To put this into perspective that is the amount of mercury that would be emitted by burning coal to generate the electricity necessary to light 67 compact fluorescent bulbs for about 115 years).

According tor Jo-Anne St. Godard, Exectuive Director of the RCO, the RCO is working to develop a provincial-wide stewardship program aimed at IC&I sector (schools, hospitals, government buildings, shopping malls, factories). RCO has received funding from the Standards Development Branch of the Ontario Ministry of Environment (which has been involved in the development and implementation of Canada-wide Standards (CWS) for mercury including mercury-containing lamps), to test the model. In addition 2 school divisions have agreed to participate in its initial rollout. RCO will be working with lamp manufacturers, distributors and the MOE to ensure environmental performance and economic efficiency.

Anybody interested in florescent lamp stewardship issues can call Jo-Anne at (416) 657-2797 Ext. 1

Now some cynics would argue that the SAQ's motivation for doing this is driven by a system of, "...bonuses and special deals awarded to senior executives and board members" for maximizing "profits". Others might argue that liquor board revenue maximization is aimed at staving off privatization. I disagree with both views. Rather I tend to agree with the LCBO's lobbyists (yes, crown corporations do require their own lobbyists) who assert that the motivation is borne of altruism - that is, liquor boards seek to maximize revenues with the hope of funding hospitals, MRI's and better public services in general.

And it is for this reason that I do not support a deposit-refund system for SAQ or LCBO containers. Should these agencies pick up the environmental and financial responsibilities for their packaging it could mean longer wait times in emergency rooms and perhaps even an outbreak of avian flu. In this regard it is only reasonable to support both the landfill of wine and spirits containers and liquor board price fixing as necessary means to better funded public services.

And it is not like the SAQ isn't doing its part for the environment. As of Februray 25th 2006 the SAQ will be offering reusable bags. To quote the SAQ's website,

Entirely made of cotton, this bag is designed with dividing panels to stop the bottles from colliding with one another, allowing you to safely carry up to six 750 ml bottles!

As of February 27, the bag will be sold for $2.25 and with every sale, $0.50 will be donated to the Biodiversity and Wildlife Habitat Fund, created by the Fondation de la faune du Québec in order to ensure the protection of endangered species in Quebec.

So get your sac réutilisable from the SAQ and fill it with all the foutaise you can handle.

SAN FRANCISCO EPR RESOLUTION
Passed Unanimously Feb 14, 2006

[Extended Producer Responsibility]

Urging San Francisco’s State delegation to support statewide efforts to hold producers responsible for product waste, starting with toxic products defined as universal waste; requesting the Department of the Environment recommend local extended producer responsibility policies as well as work with necessary agencies to develop producer responsibility language for inclusion in City contracts.

WHEREAS, Manufactured goods and packaging constitute about seventy-five percent of the materials managed by the City and County of San Francisco and sent to landfill, costing San Francisco residents and businesses about $150 million a year in refuse rates plus millions more in taxes to manage; and

WHEREAS, On February 8, 2006, a state law takes effect that makes it illegal to throw in the garbage items defined as “universal waste,” which includes household batteries, fluorescent bulbs or tubes, thermostats, other items that contain mercury, as well as electronic devices including VCRs, microwaves, cellular phones, cordless phones, printers, and radios; and

WHEREAS, Assuming a fifty percent recovery rate, collecting and disposing of these products now banned from the trash will cost San Francisco an estimated additional $5 million each year; and

WHEREAS, When additional products are declared as hazardous by the State the burden to manage these items will fall to local jurisdictions; and

WHEREAS, There are significant environmental and human health impacts associated with household products that contain toxic ingredients, including mercury, lead, cadmium and other toxic chemicals that when disposed of improperly can contaminate water supplies; and

WHEREAS, By covering the costs of collection and disposal, local governments are subsidizing the production of waste because manufacturers know that whatever they produce the local government will foot the bill for recycling or disposal; and

WHEREAS, Extended Producer Responsibility is an environmental policy approach in which producers assume responsibility—financial and/or physical—for the management of post-consumer products, so that those who produce and use products bear the costs of recycling and proper disposal; and

WHEREAS, When brand owners are responsible for ensuring their products are recycled responsibly, and when health and environmental costs are included in the product price, there is a strong incentive to design and purchase goods that are more durable, easier to recycle, and less toxic; and

WHEREAS, It is timely to develop and support extended producer responsibility legislation to address the universal waste sector of the waste stream first in response to the state ban on universal waste from household disposal; now, therefore be it

RESOLVED, That the Board of Supervisors urges our representatives in Sacramento to pursue statewide extended producer responsibility legislation targeted at universal waste that will give incentives for the redesign of products to make them less toxic, and shift the cost for recycling and proper disposal of products from the local government to the producer and distributor of the product; and, be it

FURTHER RESOLVED, That the Department of the Environment develop producer responsibility policies such as leasing products rather than purchasing them, and requiring the manufacturers of products sold to City departments to offer less toxic alternatives, and to take responsibility for collecting and recycling their products at the end of their useful life; and, be it

FURTHER RESOLVED, that the City and County of San Francisco will continue to support extended producer responsibility initiatives and statewide legislation beyond universal waste to cover areas including other hazardous products, bulky packaging, and items like plastics and multi-material products that are difficult to recycle.

Bill. A question. Do state legislators listen to municipalities in California?

The resolution and related documents are posted under “Local Government EPR” at http://www.productpolicy.org/resources/index.html