Judging Ontario's environment minister
There are various yardsticks for measuring the success or failure of a government, or specifically a minister and his or her staff.
I've been watching Ontario Environment Minister Laurel Broten for some time now, and have suspended judgement. There hasn't been to much to get excited about so far, and no major disasters. It's clear that the Liberal McGuinty government wants to play up its agenda, such as post-Walkerton drinking water safety, and avoid being drawn into other priorities, especially those that concern solid waste.
I'm not going to sit on the sidelines any longer. For me, there's one issue that will go a long way toward showing whether we have an effective government and environment minister in Ontario or not. It's my personal litmus test.
The issue is whether or not the government is prepared to take on the Liquor Control Board of Ontario (LCBO), both in the sense of privatizing this moribund crown corporation, and in the specific matter of putting LCBO glass containers into a return-to-retail and/or return-to-depot deposit-refund system.
I have read a great deal about this issue, and attended many conferences and workshops in which the current blue box recycling of glass has been discussed. I know the environment minister has access to all this information, too. Now we have today's news item, from Owens-Illinois -- which operates two large glass manufacturing and glass-to-glass recycling plants in Ontario (one of them in Minister Broten's own riding!). O-I Canada has submitted its critique (a five-page letter) of glass recycling in Ontario to the Stewardship Ontario Blue Box Funding Review Committee.
We've posted the letter as a downloadable pdf file on our website under Posted Documents. For your convenience, I also reproduce today's news item below in full. If there was ever a searing indictment of the status quo of blue box recycling, at least as it applies to glass, this is it!
I'm going to watch Minister Broten's reaction carefully. My expectation is that sometime in the next six months to a year, she and her government will (a) pass legislation that requires the LCBO to place its glass containers on deposit and (b) halt the LCBO's tactics in trying to shift suppliers into Tetra Paks (or at least fund the full cost of diverting these from landfill). If Minister Broten accepts the status quo for LCBO glass, or if she allows the lobbyists to guide her into some policy in which the poor performance of the current system is further masked, the data fudged, I will conclude that Broten is a lousy environment minister, and I will sharpen my pen here and in our print magazine to point out in painful detail exactly why.
So there, I've thrown down the gauntlet! Watch this space for ongoing commentary on this issue. And DO read the O-I document. It's one of the most powerful critiques I've read of this issue in a long time.
O-I letter castigates Ontario recycling system
Through its Canadian subsidiary O-I Canada Corporation, glass manufacturer Owens-Illinois (O-I) has written its comments to the Stewardship Ontario Blue Box Funding Review Committee. The document is posted on our website under Posted Documents (at www.solidwastemag.com). O-I operates two large glass recycling plants in Ontario.
The document constitutes something of a scathing indictment of the current Ontario curbside recycling system, at least as it applies to glass containers. The document also sheds light on problems that stem from single-stream recycling -- a current trend.
The five-page letter pulls no punches and states: "...glass recycling in Ontario is failing and failing badly."
"Single-stream" blue box collection of recyclables means that more glass is being sent to landfill today than just a year ago, the letter says. Ironically, as Ontario ships millions of tonnes of garbage to Michigan each year for disposal, O-I Canada is importing cullet derived from Michigan's deposit-refund based recovery system to manufacture glass packaging in Ontario.
Rather than address the problem of low glass recycling rates, the Liquor Control Board of Ontario (LCBO), O-I says, the single largest source of waste glass in the province, is coercing its suppliers to switch to Tetra Pak cartons that are recovered at a rates of only 12.7 per cent (or one-fifth the rate at which glass is recovered by the blue box today).
"While low-weight packaging with a low recovery rate certainly offers the LCBO lower
applicable stewardship fees, it comes at a tremendous cost to Ontario's environment and economy," the letter states.
Based in Toledo, Ohio, O-I is the largest manufacturer of glass containers in the world, with leading positions in Europe, North America, Asia Pacific and South America. For more information about the company, visit www.o-i.com
EDITOR'S NOTE: The forthcoming February/March edition of Solid Waste & Recycling magazine will contain detailed editorial comment on the LCBO glass and Tetra Pak issue. Additionally, readers will want to watch the online diaries (blogs) on this website for additional analysis of the glass recycling issue in the days to come.
Comments
I own a company called specialty sands and sell about 2ooo ton of crushed glass a year.We process material from industry but our local recycling stations are of almost no help.I need to be able to dry the glass on site at transfer stations but the moe fees for application are going to kill me .We ship our glass all over Norh America and could sell alot more if we had help.
Posted by: steve van der voort | June 24, 2006 9:43 AM
I just happened to come across your comments, our company has developed and patented a glass processing system that can handle the contaminated mixed cullet ejected from Material Recovery Systems. Our system can stand alone or be attached to a MRF. Our R&D was partically supported by NRC of Ontario and Environment Canada. Our process creates a pure "Glass Sand" product that is utilized in a number of industrial applications, containers,fibreglass,sandblasting,waterfiltration... when we completed out testing,Environment Canada sent a letter to the Association of Municipalites announcing our process...we got zero response....I have vigorously tried to get the GTA to fund a system with little response eventhough the capital cost of a system would be recovered by the costs of disposing of waste glass...it seems that this new entity, Stewardship Ontario controls the game...they collect from industry over $50 million to distribute to municipalities based on a formula that rewards tons processed not recycled. Glass as you know goes through MRF's and 50% goes out the back door and is then taken to landfill at additional costs. Municipalities have signed a guaranteed tonnage rate to the MRF operators and if they divert glass to another process must pay for ghost tonnage as a penalty. MRF's are cash cows to the waste industry..who control through contract...all levels of solid waste handling...they vigorously oppose any change that threatens their revenue base. Glass is 40-50% of the weight of a blue box.. I approached York Region when it was just thinking about recycling back in 1996...to suggest a new direction...unfortunately they are married to the waste industry and their suggestions...they make sure that no new technologies can emerge through restrictive contracts that require huge performance bonds. In 2003,I again approached York Region as they were constructing their $40-50million MRF system in Keswick and again told them one facility housed in their MRF could handle 80-100,000 tons of waste glass...their myopic response was....'we don't have that amount of waste glass and don't want to be the solution for the GTA'. Sandworks is not a recycler but a reuser our raw material is waste container glass from which we produce a product and therefore are exempt from MOE approval. Mr Van der Woor's system is too small and slow to be applicable to the large industrial users...our product is 99.7% pure and has been tested extensively by industry and exceeds their strick parameters. I agreed with OI, the LCBO's direction does nothing to solve the waste problems...their spin-doctors tell the media that tetrapaks will reduce waste....glass is recyclable an infinite number of times whereas tetrapaks are just waste and because of their multi-layers take 150-200yrs to breakdown...some of the layers(metals) are toxic to landfills and eventually leach into the water tables. We approached the LCBO to develop our system...they currently handle waste cartons, we suggested a bottle deposit system and all recovered bottles be thrown into a waste bin...an easy system...just add a second trash bin and a shoot. The glass then would be picked up by their regular haulers and taken to our process...since the LCBO is owned by Ontario...the GTA opposed this since it would divert tonnage from their MRF's and they would have to pay penalties to the waste industry...the waste industry's control is complete because our municipalities are short sighted...no new waste technology can survive in this backwards environment...
I totally agree with the assessment of OI, if we had a system in place in Ontario we could supple a large % of their glass cullet needs...The mentality of the LCBO must be changed..its tetrapak direction saves stewardship fees...but wastes taxpayers dollars. What the LCBO pays in penalties(fees),to Stewarship Ontario could easily build a glass processing facility and the saving would multiply....unfortunaltely our Environment Minister(Broten) has no knowlegde in this field and takes the political safe ground of supporting the status quo. Mr. Crittenden, we have the solution to the waste glass problem..it can be implemeted easily but not within the current political climate...I would have liked to put a system up in the Province where it was developed but the road blocks are massive...we are now setting our sights to US and other locations where the climate is more accepting and their is political support for real change. The municipal 'waste management' depts are an oxymoron and only exist to serve the massive waste industry. Trivia question..for you Soprano watchers..What legitimate business is Tony Soprano in? The Answer will tell you what the waste industry is really like. Mr. Crittenden if you wish we could continue this discussion further.
Posted by: David Bergart, President Sandworks | July 31, 2006 10:31 AM