Bottle and can refund hike coming soon, but not as much as Islanders first thought

A long-awaited increase to the refund Islanders receive for their recyclable beverage containers could be coming soon, but it won't be as much as the P.E.I. government once promised. 

For the past year, some people have been holding onto their refundable bottles and cans, waiting for the province to follow through on a pledge to up the amount of money they could get back by returning the items to a recycling depot. 

A year ago, Environment Minister Steven Myers said the deposit on such containers would double, from 10 to 20 cents, while the refund would triple — from five cents to 15.

"I continue to hear from Islanders who have bags upon bags upon bags of cans filling up their sheds and basements. Can you please give us an update on when Islanders can finally expect this increase?" Karla Bernard, the interim Green Party leader, asked current Environment Minister Gilles Arsenault in the legislature Tuesday.

Arsenault responded that his department is working on amending the legislation to match the refund system that was rolled out in New Brunswick last year.

The new structure will keep the current deposit amount of 10 cents, and double — not triple — the current refund rate to 10 cents.

That means you'll recover 100 per cent of your deposit. But if you have a shed full of cans that you thought would eventually be worth 15 cents each, the price of your stock just dropped 33 per cent.

Arsenault said the province plans to introduce the amended legislation within the next couple of weeks, with hopes the system will be in place by the fall. 

"There's thousands of cans out there waiting to be refunded. People have been collecting the cans for now close to a year… so I'm as anxious as they are to bring this to the finish line," the environment minister said Tuesday after question period.  

"We're trying to work as quickly as we can, and if we can have that prior to the fall, we will."

There may also be questions about whether extra costs could be built into the new program.

When New Brunswick made its switch to the so-called 10-10 model, it added hidden fees to beverages based on the type of container. The fees don't show up on grocery receipts and, in some cases, are worth more than the increase to the refund.

New Brunswick's model is run by Encorp Atlantic, a not-for-profit organization created by the beverage industry that manages bottle returns in that province.  

It's not clear whether that will also be the case with P.E.I.'s new deposit system.