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CBC
37 minutes ago
- CBC
After complaints about costs, Ontario proposes weakening incoming recycling rules
Ontario Premier Doug Ford's government is proposing to weaken an impending slate of new recycling rules because producers of the materials said the system is getting too expensive. The province began transitioning in 2023 toward making producers pay for the recycling of their packaging, paper and single-use items. The companies' obligations were set to increase next year, but the government is now looking to delay some measures and outright cancel others, such as requirements to extend collection beyond the residential system. Environmental advocates say the proposed changes let producers off the hook and will mean more materials will end up in landfills or be incinerated. Producers say despite the rising costs, recycling rates don't actually appear to be improving, so it's time for a broader rethink. Environment Minister Todd McCarthy said the proposed changes are about ensuring the sustainability of the blue box system and protecting against unintended consequences such as job losses. "We want to take what we've done and improve upon what already exists, but the costs were a big deal, and so we're proposing some measures that would bring about cost savings and transparency and improvement to accomplish the goal of recycling that we all want," he said earlier this month. Costs would double for producers, council says The Canadian Retail Council estimates that producer costs have already increased by about 350 per cent in three years and would nearly double again just from this year to next if no changes were made to the impending new rules for 2026. The government says blue box collection costs could more than double between 2020 and 2030. "Cost increases of this magnitude were not anticipated when the regulation was passed in 2021 and have jeopardized the stability of the blue box system today," it says in its proposal to change the rules. WATCH | Some companies say impending changes to recycling system will be too expensive: Who pays for recycling collection in Ontario is changing, and corporations aren't happy 1 year ago Duration 2:13 Ontario is in the process of shifting the cost burden of blue box recycling programs away from municipalities and onto companies that make and sell products that generate waste. As CBC's Mike Crawley explains, some of those companies are now asking Doug Ford's government to change the plan, saying it's too expensive. Currently, producers just have to make "best efforts" to hit certain recycling rate percentages, such as 80 per cent of paper and 50 per cent of rigid plastic, and starting next year they are set to be enforceable. Then in 2030 those percentages are set to rise. But now the government is proposing to delay those 2026 targets to 2031. As well, Ontario is proposing to allow non-recyclable material that gets incinerated to count for up to 15 per cent of producers' recycling targets. Starting next year, producers are also supposed to be responsible for collecting material from more multi-residential buildings, and certain long-term care homes, retirement homes and schools. The government is now proposing to remove that requirement entirely. The same goes for a rule that would have made beverage producers responsible for containers not just dropped in a residential blue box but also those used outside the home, and a provision for producers to expand collection in public spaces. Comments on the regulatory registry proposal can be submitted until July 21. Proposal lowers recycling target for flexible plastics The intent behind the initial regulations was to incentivize producers to use less packaging and to use materials that can more easily be recycled, said Karen Wirsig, senior program manager for plastics with Environmental Defence. These changes would halt any progress on that score, she said. "Municipalities have been saying for years, 'Our blue box is getting more and more filled with packaging types we can't even identify let alone properly sort ... because often they're made with mixed materials that are not easily recycled,"' Wirsig said. "So because there was that disconnect between the producers who design all this packaging and the municipalities who are collecting it, there was no way to rationalize the system and improve packaging from an environmental and sustainability point of view. These regulations were intended to start doing that, and unfortunately, now all of the incentives are going the opposite direction." The recycling of flexible plastics, which includes food wraps, pouches and bags, is a particular bone of contention and the government is proposing to both delay and reduce the target for that category. In a recycling facility, flexible plastics end up in all sorts of places because they're so light, getting stuck among paper or falling through the cracks of conveyor belts, said Michael Zabaneh, the Retail Council of Canada's vice-president of sustainability. Instead of a recycling target of 25 per cent taking effect next year, a target of five per cent would take effect in 2031 under the government's proposal for flexible plastics. That five per cent reflects the estimated current level of flexible plastic diversion, according to the government's regulatory proposal. It is silent on the current levels for all other materials. Those current levels are unknown, with the Resource Productivity and Recovery Authority saying it will report on rates once the three-year transition is over. That is a big problem, said Zabaneh. "We're all in the blind," he said. "I think you can't have a recycling system with accountability, [and not have] transparency and real data." Current system is inefficient: retail council VP The main problem with the government's current system is that it allows for multiple administrators, said Zabaneh. Producers sign up with producer responsibility organizations, which help them meet their blue box obligations. There are four such organizations operating in Ontario, which just ends up complicating the system and making it more expensive, Zabaneh said. "There's an administrative body to drive collection, but then processing is kind of a competitive thing, and this creates a very fragmented and inefficient system," he said. "It limits planning, it prevents collective investment, capital investment, so that's disincentivized, and you have a lot of added costs from logistics and audits, and that's why we have escalating costs." Retail council members helped found and sit on the board of one producer responsibility organization so they have some idea of recycling rates from that, and based on that limited view the numbers look stagnant, the council says. Producers welcome the delayed targets, Zabaneh said, but it doesn't solve the core problem. Having a single producer responsibility organization would reduce costs and allow for greater transparency of recycling rates and financial performance, the retail council says. Canadian Beverage Association president Krista Scaldwell said their members want the system to be successful because recycling and recovery benefits companies as well as the environment. "We want the aluminum and plastic back because we can make it into new containers," she said. "The members are very committed to sustainability initiatives, and so we need to understand what's creating the cost so that we can help support some change, so we can see improved recovery without escalating costs."
CTV News
44 minutes ago
- CTV News
Maine governor visiting the Maritimes this week
Atlantic Watch The governor of Maine will be visiting the Maritimes and meeting with Atlantic premiers this week.
Globe and Mail
an hour ago
- Globe and Mail
Canada, prepare for a decade of thrift and lower living standards
John Turley-Ewart is a contributing columnist for The Globe and Mail, a regulatory compliance consultant and a Canadian banking historian. We are poorer than we think. Canadians running their retirement numbers are shining light in the dark corners of household finances in this country. The sums leave many 'anxious, fearful and sad about their finances,' according to a Healthcare of Ontario Pension Plan survey recently reported in these pages. Fifty-two per cent of us worry a lot about our personal finances. Fifty per cent feel frustrated, 47 per cent feel emotionally drained and 43 per cent feel depressed. There is not one survey indicator to suggest Canadians have made financial progress in 2025 compared with 2024. The federal government was elected this spring promising to mitigate the threat of U.S. President Donald Trump's tariff war and implement a transformative economic agenda. If it succeeds, the effects will be felt in the medium to long-term. In the near term, Canadians know that their financial reckoning adds up to years of debt repayment, reducing expectations, making compromises, retiring later (or not retiring at all) and lower living standards. House approves Bill C-5 to fast-track projects, Carney pledges summer consultations with Indigenous leaders Our debt-to-household disposable income has bumped up against nearly 200 per cent for years now, putting Canada in first place among G7 countries. Canada's is 185 per cent; the average for all G7 countries is 125 per cent according to Statistics Canada. Canadian households collectively owe about $3-trillion, almost three-quarters of it is mortgage debt. Today's Canadian dream is to make the next mortgage payment without having to borrow it. The housing crisis hasn't just hobbled the hopes of many Canadians seeking affordable housing; it is undercutting middle-class living standards. Earlier this year at a conference with Canadian bank CEOs, Peter Routledge, who leads Canada's bank regulator, the Office of the Superintendent of Financial Institutions, alluded to the bleak financial reality many Canadian are facing this year and next as the cost of high household debt will take a bigger bite out of their disposable incomes. Mr. Routledge said 2025 and 2026 will be challenging years. 'As of September 2024, 65 per cent or 3.8 million mortgages are set to renew by the end of 2026. Of these, approximately 62 per cent (or 2.4 million) have yet to experience increased payments.' With higher mortgage payments layered atop elevated living costs that Canadians have endured over the past five years, materially increasing the price of basics such as food, there is much less money to put aside for retirement. Using the Bank of Canada's inflation calculator, what cost $100 in 2020 now costs $120. Climbing costs associated with inflation and higher debt service payments are slowing savings and investment rates in Canada, which reduces funds available to pay for retirement. Statistics Canada's first quarter of its 2025 national balance sheet and financial flow accounts report, released on June 12, is a telling document. Household savings and investment rates are 'down for a second consecutive quarter' because 'household spending (+1%) outpaced disposable income gains (+0.8%).' The rising net worth of Canadian households is showing signs of stalling, up 0.8 per cent in the first quarter of 2025 versus 1 per cent in the last quarter of 2024. Opinion: A war-plan for Canada: Buy gold, sell oil, build But that growth is misleading, given that it is the wealthiest 20 per cent of households that own 68.1 per cent of all financial assets and 51.2 per cent of real estate. Even the rich are not getting richer at the pace they are accustomed to. We are starting to hit the credit wall in Canada. In the first quarter of this year mortgage demand declined as did demand for non-mortgage debt. Statistics Canada accounts for this by concluding that 'household borrowing slows as debt continues to outpace income growth.' Mortgage interest payments are up this year by 0.3 per cent as mortgage renewals push households into higher interest rates versus those that prevailed during the pandemic when they were running at historic lows. If there is a bright spot in 2025, it is that decreases in the Bank of Canada policy interest rate this year has helped reduce interest payments on non-mortgage loans, many of which are home equity lines of credit. This helps pay for higher mortgage payments. What all of this tells us, and what those wondering what retirement might look like are realizing, is that paying down household debt for the foreseeable future is where much of our disposable income as Canadians must go. That thinking of retirement provokes anxiety in surveys on the matter shouldn't be surprising. It is one more item on a growing list of aspirations many Canadians cannot afford.
