Big grocers, retailers want Ontario's recycling plan changed

Premier Doug Ford's government is facing corporate pressure to change Ontario's plan that sees industry taking on the full cost of blue box recycling programs, CBC News has learned.

Two organizations led by some of Canada's biggest supermarket chains, retailers and consumer goods companies want Ontario's blue box regulations amended, just as the industry faces a sharp rise in expenses under the transition. 

While the two corporate groups insist the changes they want would not weaken Ontario's recycling program or slow down the cost shift to companies, the push is raising alarm bells among municipalities and environmental groups. 

The industry is "trying to shirk its environmental responsibilities," said Ashley Wallis, associate director for Environmental Defence. 

"If producers are not paying for this packaging, it's going to be taxpayers, it's going to be the environment or it's going to be human health, and that would be a massive step backwards," Wallis said in an interview.  

Municipal governments fear the changes could saddle them with higher costs, more waste in landfills and more litter on the streets. 

Ontario is in the process of shifting the cost burden of trash away from municipalities and onto companies that make and sell products that generate waste. 

With this shift — called "extended producer responsibility" — industry now bears the full costs of recycling or recovering such items as tires, batteries, light bulbs and electronics. 

Under the system, companies pay fees, based on the amount of waste material they create, to businesses that manage recycling programs, known as producer responsibility organizations (PROs). 

It's up to the companies to choose whether to pass those fees on to consumers or to absorb them as a cost of doing business. The theory is that the fees provide the companies with an incentive to reduce their packaging and other waste. 

For material that fills up blue boxes — including beverage containers, paper, plastic, glass and metal — the transition to industry paying the full costs only began last year and is to complete by 2026. 

Right now, companies are seeing their blue box fees shoot upward exponentially. 

The biggest producer responsibility organization in the blue box sector, Circular Materials, is actively lobbying the government for changes that it says would save companies upwards of $100 million in running the blue box system, according to a March 21 document labelled "confidential" obtained by CBC News. 

The board of directors of Circular Materials includes executives from Loblaws, Costco, Coca-Cola, Maple Leaf Foods, Procter & Gamble and a dozen other major companies.