I flew into Maui on 13 January for a vacation.

I did not want to think about garbage for ten days or so...

On my first trip to the grocery store I noticed little placards announcing a ban on plastic bags. As my vacation wore on I noticed these all over the island.

Rather than the ubiquitous reusable plastic bags we trundle around with, my groceries were packed in paper bags-which the Americans still seem pretty fond of (by the way when’s the last time you saw groceries being taken home in plastic bags in the movies). Some had handles and were defined as reusable- if reusable was defined as destined to break the first time you used it.

The ordnance implementing the plastic carry-out bag ban was passed in August 2008. It was put in place to deal with litter concerns and to try and protect marine life which can ingest if not become entangled in plastic bags. The ban itself came into place on 11 January of this year.

Plastic bags don’t litter. People do. Once they become litter however they are a nuisance. They blow around and end up in all sorts of places including the ocean. I suppose paper bags don’t blow around so much if they are littered and will eventually decompose.

My whale watching outing later in the week brought home the incredibleness of the ocean. It featured humpback whales flipping and flopping all over the place. The amount of marine life in the region was amazing and made pretty clear that part of the Island’s motivation to ban plastic carry-out bags.

There did not seem to be any hue and cry: People seemed to be adapting. Plastic bags were fully replaced by paper bags so there was no inconvenience or costs charges to customers. There were places where you could buy reusable plastic bags.

I lived in Ireland when they introduced a plastic bag ban in 2002 or more accurately passed a $0.25 fee on each plastic bag sold. There was no hue and cry there either. Just a lot of people stoically carrying 100 euros worth of groceries, in their arms, because they were too cheap to buy bags- reusable or otherwise.

Banning plastic bags has little to no impact on the operation of a landfill. They don’t weigh very much or take up much space. They do not clog landfills. They can be effectively collected and recycled.

The key advantages of plastic bags- they are light and durable- are their key environmental disadvantages. They become litter easily and remain so for a very long time thereafter.

You think that littering would be so publically frowned upon that it would not be an issue. It shouldn’t be a problem but it is. Public education programs do not have the desired impact on what should be pretty basic human behaviour. Sometimes a more quantitative approach works better- “no you can’t” versus “please don’t”.

Banning plastic carry-out bags on an island such as Maui has the potential to have a measureable impact on the amount that become part of the litter stream. It would be interesting to see a quantitative study in a couple of years that measures the impact of this ban.

I flew out of Maui on 22 January from a vacation.

I had not wanted to think about garbage for ten days or so...

I resisted stopping at recycling depots and taking photos of anything related to garbage because you know sometimes you just have to give it a rest... Or at least try.

Posted by Paul at 11:52 AM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

I was very flattered the other day when someone from Ontario’s environment ministry suggested I repost a blog entry from last year on Zero Waste that she thought bore repeating. So here it is again, ten points about Zero Waste.

Ten Points on “Zero Waste”

Posted by Guy Crittenden

Some recent correspondence with members of the new Ontario Zero Waste Coalition caused me to write up an explanation of Zero Waste, as I understand the term. My motivation was both to clarify the term and further differentiate it from other concepts that, while they may work in concert with Zero Waste (at present), are quite different. The main one is “waste diversion” -- a catchall phrase for activities like municipal recycling and composting that may be worthwhile for some applications, but that are not the same as Zero Waste and might, in some instances, work against the goals of the Zero Waste movement.

I offer an edited version below for the benefit of interested parties. The items are not listed in order of importance.

1. The Zero Waste movement is concerned with moving beyond “waste disposal” and even “waste diversion” toward a society that views waste as poor design. The idea is to design waste out of products and packaging completely.

2. Ideally, municipalities could eventually only collect and process organic materials (kitchen scraps and yard trimmings); “product waste” (all the byproducts of the consumer society) will be managed in manufacturer networks, reverse distribution systems and, in some cases, municipalities collecting material under contract from private businesses. Industry will pay for the reuse and recycling of its byproducts, as well as anything that needs final disposal, which should be as close to zero as possible.

3. “Waste diversion” (recycling, etc.) is only an interim step along the path to true Extended Producer Responsibility (EPR) wherein businesses will assume “cradle to cradle” responsibility for their products, and not externalize certain lifecycle costs onto the environment or taxpayers (which provide a kind of subsidy by absorbing industry’s effluvia or carting it off). When they have to pay for the end-of-life management of their products, businesses have a financial incentive to become “eco-efficient.”

4. The Zero Waste movement opposes “product stewardship” programs that look superficially like EPR but are in fact nothing of the kind. In some product stewardship programs an industry funding organization (IFO) is established that charges an advance recycling fee to collect and manage waste materials. Even if this offers the positive aspect of keeping the materials out of landfill, there’s often no incentive for producers to change “business as usual” (i.e., redesign products for reuse and recycling). For consumers, the “eco fee” becomes analogous to a green tax that they have no choice but to pay, with only a vague idea that some good will come from the program. In the worst instances, the advance recycling fee rewards “free riders” that foist poorly designed products (from an ecological standpoint) on the market, yet get to wear the same green “fig leaf” as companies that are more eco-efficient. The eco-fee may even discourage companies from doing more to improve their environmental performance at each stage, because the stewardship program has simply made the environmental image problem “go away.” Consumers feel the problem has been dealt with and consume in the usual way, “guilt free.” Instead, true Extended Producer Responsibility is what is sought.

5. Nothing in the Zero Waste philosophy is meant to question the good intentions, sincerity and professionalism of municipal waste managers. They generally perform an excellent job doing what society asks of them. Instead, what Zero Waste proponents are doing is changing what is being asked of these professionals. Where society and its elected representatives used to ask, “How can we safely dispose of this waste?” or (more recently) “How can we divert more of this material from disposal (e.g., landfill, incineration)?” the new questions are along the lines of, “What would a truly sustainable society look like?” The answer to that question may include municipalities not handling many waste materials at all. Local governments have, in a sense, become “enablers” of the throwaway society.

6. Even if we could design the perfect landfill that never leaks or the perfect emissions-free waste-to-energy incinerator, Zero Waste advocates would still view that negatively because the very last thing they want is make it even easier to consume and dispose of goods (“guilt free”). Something that’s often lost in the simplistic public conversation over waste diversion versus disposal is that the biggest part of the environmental footprint occurs not at a product’s disposal or recycling stage, but “upstream” during the stages of natural resource extraction, manufacturing, transportation and distrubution, and during the useful life of the product. We’re facing a broader sustainability challenge, not a mere “disposal problem,” the Zero Waste advocates might say.

7. Everyone agrees that waste management infrastructure -- if it’s to be built at all -- should be constructed and operated to a high standard and comply with environmental regulations. Waste management professionals constantly try to deflect public skepticism about new waste transfer, processing or disposal systems with promises that everything will be done properly, and that there won’t be toxic emissions or odors or leaks. However, in place of better disposal infrastructure, Zero Waste promotes what some people call “industrial ecology” -- a materials and energy flow system that is harmonious with, and reflective of, natural systems, where waste is either not produced at all, or is the raw material for another product. Nothing goes to waste in nature. While government has a role as regulator and overseer, this outcome is just too important to entrust to government alone. The power of a subsidy-free marketplace can be harnessed to achieve sustainability faster and for the very long term. A Zero Waste system would include changes in the way products are made, used and delivered to the marketplace. Eco parks would spring up to efficiently share resources, including raw or recycled materials and electricity or steam.

8. Any list of preferred Zero Waste materials and systems quickly points up the (ironic) point that often the environmentally superior solution is also the cheapest. Examples include: reusable cloth shopping bags instead of disposable (or even recyclable) plastic or paper bags; refillable coffee mugs instead of paper or polystyrene cups; water consumed from the tap or via refillable containers, rather than single-serve plastic containers (often transported great distances); soft drinks and beer, etc. sold in refillable containers rather than throwaway “recyclable” containers; computers and other electronics equipment designed for easy dismantling for reuse or recycling at end-of-life; packaging made from recyclable and renewable fibres rather than plastics derived from fossil fuels (e.g., foam, film plastic, bubble wrap, etc.). The savviest Zero Waste proponents prefer not to play the game of trying to specify which materials are the best or worst; instead, they say that if we force industry to internalize its costs (and not externalize them onto the environment of ratepayers) the most eco-efficient solutions will emerge.

9. Zero Waste advocates decry the situation in which public policy often focuses only on residential waste which, while visible to voters, is only about one-third of the waste stream. The other two-thirds of commercial and industrial waste is made up primarily of recyclable materials such as metal, paper, cardboard, wood, etc. that should not be sent to landfill. It’s time, they say, for policies that consider all “three-thirds” of the waste stream.

10. The Zero Waste movement is not advocating a return to some kind of pre-industrial Stone Age. It’s not attempting to turn the clock back very far. Our grandparents who survived the Great Depression knew a thing or two about thrift and the value of reusing glass bottles and getting all the possible use out of a product. In their day, durability was prized over mere “convenience.” The throwaway society was invented in the 1950s in the era when “cheap” energy from oil and electricity seemed limitless, and the modern chemical industry was born. In an era of peak oil and greater awareness of the dangers from some synthetic chemicals, it’s time to rethink the throwaway society and replace its values with those of just two or three generations ago.

Conclusion

When we complain about the “inconvenience” of having to bring a reusable cloth shopping bag into the grocery store, or ride a bike to work (where possible), or put our kitchen scraps into a green bin for composting, what we’re really complaining about is having to change from a “waste full” way of being in the world to a “waste less” way of life. We’re like modern equivalents of degenerate aristocrats who, having fallen on difficult times, have to learn to live without servants, empty their own bed pans, wash their own soiled linens and cook their own food.

The modern throwaway society gave us a lot of convenience over the past half-century, and it also spoiled us rotten and made us careless individuals who cry crocodile tears over bleached coral reefs or disappearing rain forest even as we move into larger and larger climate-controlled homes filled with designer furniture and appliances that magazines have convinced us we must have. Indeed, we have a fetish now for these things.

Marshall McLuhan once said, “There are no passengers on Spaceship Earth. We are all crew.” He made this statement in 1965, in reference to Operating Manual for Spaceship Earth (1963) by Buckminster Fuller.

That statement is something I think about every day, both the McLuhan quote and the title of Buckminster Fuller’s book. Whether you’re an environmental engineer, a waste recycling coordinator, a person working in industry, a consumer or just (!) an interested citizen, you are engaged, as a crew member, in the ad hoc writing of that operating manual. The Zero Waste movement is currently writing a section -- perhaps a whole chapter -- in that manual, because waste is the rough, cut-your-fingers edge where the consumer society and Earth’s natural systems collide. It’s where we can measure the size and depth of our ecological footprint.

Far from being just about “the household trash,” Zero Waste is really about… everything.

Posted by Guy Crittenden at 2:27 PM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

As I mentioned in an earlier blog the McGuinty Government in Ontario is facing challenges and unrest from various quarters regarding its Green Energy policies, specifically the decisions to fast track its renewable energy portfolio using Wind Power.

As the provincial election looms, the unrest is growing and it is not a good sign for McGuinty.

On the political front, the NDP in Ontario have used the Freedom of Information Act in an effort to obtain details on the billion dollar contract signed by the McGuinty government with Samsung and the Korea Electric Power Corporation. NDP efforts were to no avail because the financial details have been redacted in the agreement they acquired.

The NDP is screaming foul. The Toronto Star reports NDP Peter Tabuns stating that; “The NDP is pro-green energy”. “But if you sign a contract the people of Ontario should have enough information to judge if we got a good deal or not”.

Although the Liberal Minister of Energy responded that thousands of clean energy jobs are being created, the issue will not go away. The conservative MPP for Renfrew-Nipissing-Pembroke, John Yakabuski, made the comment that there was so much white-out on the agreement it looked like it was filed in a blizzard.

On the legal side two challenges have surfaced and, in my view, one is more important than the other and will have a greater political impact on McGuinty. Yesterday a panel of Ontario Divisional Court Judges began hearing the first challenge by Ian Hanna, a resident of Prince Edward County, 200 kilometres east of Toronto. Mr Hanna is challenging the regulations under the Green Energy Act and the 550 meter setback for wind turbines. If successful, the decision will affect, and possibly slow down, all projects in the province.

In my view, the second challenge should be more of a concern to McGuinty. In my book, TRASHED, I talk about the need to deal fairly and openly with, what I call, the silent majority who are concerned with the environment. I make a clear distinction between environmental “headline hunters” and the reasonable residents who will listen before forming an opinion.

The McGuinty government has a problem and his name is Dr. Bob McMurtry. Dr. McMurtry is not only a reasonable individual, he is a former Dean of Medicine at the University of Western Ontario and has acted as an advisor on health issues to the federal Liberal government. His brother, Roy McMurtry, served as Chief Justice of the Superior Court in Ontario from 1994 to 2007.

I will add more on Dr. McMurtry and the impact he is having on wind power, and McGuinty government policies, in my next blog.

www.trashedpoliticalgarbage.com
TRASHED! How Political Garbage Made the United States Canada’s Largest Dump

Posted by Gordon McGuinty at 3:14 PM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

Hello readers. We're introducing Paul van der Werf's blog on Solid Waste & Recycling magazine's website. Paul is a contributing editor to the magazine and is well known to readers, having written the Composting Matters column over the years, which is now called "Organics Matters". This blog allows Paul to periodically communicate on issues that are timely in between print editions of the magazine. Watch this space for updates and news that's pertinent to the business of waste management, composting and everything to do with organics diversion. -- ed.

Posted by Paul at 8:34 AM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

Hello readers. We're introducing Usman Valiante's blog on Solid Waste & Recycling magazine's website. Usman is a contributing editor to the magazine and is well known to readers, having written many articles and columns over the years. This blog allows Usman to periodically communicate on issues that are timely in between print editions of the magazine. Watch this space for updates and news that's pertinent to the business of waste management, waste diversion and producer responsibility. -- ed.

Posted by Usman at 8:28 AM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

I keep talking about “winning the war” and the importance of fighting back against the environmental elements that regularly dominate the media and, in many cases, twist and distort the facts to fit their agenda.

The oil-sands of Alberta have become an international punching bag for politicians, environmentalists and even foreign governments. In 2010, Alberta began fighting back. They are now getting some support from the new Federal Minister of Environment, Peter Kent.

Peter Kent has come out with a marketing strategy using the term “ethical oil”. And why not? As reported in the Globe and Mail late last week, Mr. Kent believes that part of his job is to set the record straight regarding the “bad rap” that the oil-sands is receiving.

Kent was quoted as saying; “Oil-sand production accounts, I think, for 5% of Canada’s total green-house gas emissions. It’s less than one-tenth of 1% of global greenhouse emissions and barely 1% of the equivalent greenhouse-gas emissions from American coal-fired power generators.”

The Globe article also talked about Ezra Levant, who released a book called Ethical Oil wherein he discusses the merits of buying oil from Canada, versus purchasing from the various regimes around the world who have far worse environmental records, and dubious human rights records. He points out that Canada is superior to most foreign-oil producers on every measure.

I liked this comparison. “The mayor of Fort McMurray is a young woman called Melissa Blake. How many women mayors are there in Saudi Arabia? There are none. It’s against the law.”

We need to be proud of our assets in this country. The oil-sands are one of those assets and they are a benefit to the economy of the entire country. I mentioned in my last blog that environment Ministers never stay around long enough to have an impact. Peter, it’s a great start at getting the rules straight. I hope you stay around because you will provide some leadership and be a benefit to everyone who is tired of only hearing from the other side.

www.trashedpoliticalgarbage.com
TRASHED! How Political Garbage Made the United States Canada’s Largest Dump

Posted by Gordon McGuinty at 2:15 PM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

I received an interesting and disturbing email from the Product Policy Institute's Bill Sheehan about an article by Nestle CEO, Kim Jefferies -- "Why It's Time to Rethink Recycling in the US" -- that was posted to greenbiz.com right before Christmas and has been widely circulated.

Sheehan writes, "Jefferies embraces a version of Extended Producer Responsibility that would do away with industry-managed beverage container deposit-refund laws and replace them with industry-managed, government-delivered curbside programs. Jefferies’ description of “EPR” as an alternative to deposit-refund systems is echoed in a recent report funded by Coca-Cola, noted below. It seems to be part of a coordinated beverage industry campaign to co-opt EPR rather than fixing bottle bills and making container deposits the cornerstone of EPR for packaging."

I've pasted a few comments from greenbiz.com below the main article that highlight inaccuracies in Jefferies’ description of bottle bills.

You can read the article and all comments at: http://www.greenbiz.com/blog/2010/12/22/its-time-rethink-recycling#ixzz1AmOPg6G9

I've also assembeled things here in a logical order for ease of my readers. First the article and then the comments:

Why It's Time to Rethink Recycling in the US

By Kim Jeffery (Created 2010-12-22 13:47)

Recycling reduces litter, conserves natural resources, saves energy and decreases emissions of greenhouse gases.

We recognize that for a beverage company like Nestle, it's an important aspect of enjoying the health and taste benefits of our product for consumers to know that the bottle they are drinking from will be captured and re-used. It's also important for all packaging and finished products to be captured and have a proper "home" at the end of life, either composted back to nature or collected for future re-use. Recycling is a cornerstone of a sustainable society.

At Nestlé Waters North America, we have a stated goal of achieving a 60 percent recycling rate for all PET plastic beverage containers in America by 2018 -- not just our own packaging. In our efforts to identify workable solutions to reach that goal, we have to rethink the recycling challenge.

The Recycling Problem in the U.S.

Recycling in the United States has traditionally been a function of local governments and NGOs, leaving a patchwork of recycling mandates, incentives, funding formulas and programs in communities across the country. While recycling saves energy and provides environmental benefits, recycling rates, currently at 25-30 percent, are not improving significantly. Logistics costs are rising and government fiscal crises jeopardize the viability of programs.

Today, 10 states have traditional bottle bills. California has a variation on that theme. Bottle bills, however, aren't the answer. The problem with bottle bills is they create an enormous government bureaucracy, do only a reasonable job of diverting a very small portion of the waste stream -- beverage containers -- from landfills and do nothing to build curbside, public space and commercial recycling infrastructure. Bottle bills also lack consistent public education about the importance of recycling.

Even more importantly, perhaps, is that bottle bill-style recycling is not expandable to other packaging, paper or compostable waste because these mandates rely on getting all of the "empties" back to the store. Our food stores do not have the physical space to play this role, nor should our food stores be the place we bring our garbage.

Further, bottle bills do nothing to address infrastructure for paper recycling, which accounts for 40 percent of landfill waste, only reinforcing that bottle bills are not solving the need for broader recycling solutions.

What is even more unfortunate about government-run bottle deposit jurisdictions is they break a basic trust with the consumer and the beverage industry, who have paid an environmental tax, but are not receiving the full environmental benefit. The handling fees paid by industry and the unredeemed deposits paid by consumers do not go toward enhancing a state's environmental infrastructure. Instead, they typically go into general revenues, only to be used who knows where. We have to do better than this -- and we can.

Extended Producer Responsibility: A Solution That Can Work

We propose a version of Extended Producer Responsibility (EPR) where the industry takes sole responsibility for its packaging and, in partnership with its consumers and governments, operates an industry-led, nonprofit organization across a given state. In return for a nominal fee paid by the consumer for every consumer packaged good purchased, this model invests all monies received into building best-in-class municipal curbside recycling, public spaces and commercial recycling, and public education programs.

Typically with EPR models, each consumer product goods industry sector would create its own stewardship organization and/or work with other sectors to do so. It would also work with its retail partners and its consumers to collect the fee, then with municipalities or private recyclers across a given state to build and/or enhance their curbside, public spaces and commercial recycling programs.

The Canadian province of Manitoba has this system already in place. It is known as the "hybrid recycling model" or "Manitoba model." This industry-led organization is subsidizing municipal curbside recycling programs 80/20 and is funding the entire cost of establishing public and commercial recycling programs, as well as creating public education and mass communications initiatives. Manitoba intends to divert 75 percent of its containers from landfills in the next three years.

The Business Case for Extended Producer Responsibility

EPR benefits both businesses and consumers because it lowers costs and helps motivate businesses to get creative and find ways to responsibly manage products through their full lifecycle, including reducing waste and operating costs. Further, the materials and resources used in today's products are valuable, and with an expandable EPR approach that allows for the collection of all reusable waste, more can be recaptured to ensure businesses have materials for new products tomorrow.

America needs to band together now to address the recycling issue. To do so effectively, we need robust curbside recycling programs for homes and industry, readily accessible recycling in public areas where people consume beverages, and ongoing public education to ensure consumers feel good about doing their part.

We've seen the potential power of EPR, and we are bullish on its prospects for recycling in the United States.

CRITICAL COMMENTS

Peter Spendelow, Oregon Department of Environmental Quality -- December 23, 2010 - 15:41

It is unfortunate that Mr. Jeffrey states that "the problem with bottle bills is they create an enormous government bureaucracy," because that certainly is not the case here in Oregon. Oregon was the first state to pass a bottle bill (in 1971) and the bill has been enormously successful since then. Yet there is no employee of the State of Oregon whose main job is to administer the bottle bill. In my work for the Oregon Department of Environmental Quality as a solid waste policy analyst since 1985, less than 5% of my time has been spent on bottle bill issues, yet I am the person who has done the most work on these issues for the State of Oregon. In fact, the bulk of implementation of the Oregon Bottle Bill is done by an industry group - the very capable Oregon Beverage Recycling Cooperative (OBRC). OBRC is a cooperative representing almost all of the distributors and beverage companies operating in Oregon, including Nestle. An industry group taking care to make sure that beverage containers get recycled - that is really what extended producer responsibility is all about, and that is what the industry cooperative OBRC does in Oregon under the auspices of the bottle bill.

Mr. Jeffrey also stated that bottle bills do nothing to address the paper recycling infrastructure. Actually, indirectly they do, by making the recycled paper supply much cleaner. In states without bottle bills, much of the curbside recycling is collected commingled, which means that all those glass and plastic containers are mixed in with the paper. Broken glass is a major contaminant in the paper, costing our paper mills millions of dollars in damage to equipment and forcing them to install additional cleaning technology. Much of the glass collected in those curbside programs also ends up being too contaminated and broken to be used to make new glass containers, and so it ends up being used as landfill cover or fill. In contrast, most of the glass collected in Oregon is collected under our bottle bill, and that glass goes back to a glass plant to be made into new bottles. Our paper recycling industry is thankful that we have a bottle bill in Oregon that helps keep all those bottles and cans out of their recycled paper. This may be one reason why Oregon has always been a leading state in curbside and other forms of recycling, as well as the first state with a bottle bill.

Stephen M Bantillo, Former Director of California’s Beverage Container Deposit Program -- December 28, 2010 - 15:40

Mr. Jeffery stated on NPR a couple years ago, “"Everybody that sells a plastic container that's recyclable should have some deposit on it if we're going to do this thing the right way." It appears somewhat disingenuous now for Mr. Jeffery to flog beverage container deposit programs where consumers have their deposit refunded if they recycle, and instead promote an industry-designed system of Producer Responsibility that assesses a fee on the consumer to pay for government systems. Mr. Jeffery also states that the government bureaucracy only does “a reasonable job of diverting a very small portion of the waste stream”, yet he wants to implement a system funded by the consumer that achieves a lower recycling rate than the average of the 11 bottle deposit states. In fact, the beverage container recycling rates in bottle deposit states are two to three times higher than the national average! And Mr. Jeffery wants us to Rethink Recycling? Hmmm...

Laura Haight, NYPIRG, December 23, 2010 - 14:58

My jaw dropped when I came to the line "The problem with bottle bills is they create an enormous government bureaucracy". Here in NY we have less than one fulltime staff person in the DEC overseeing the program; is this what Nestle's calls "enormous?" With an average return rate of over 70% and more than 6 billion bottles and cans recycled each year in NY alone, the bottle bill is a great example of how effective EPR can be -- all at virtually no cost to taxpayers. The states with the highest recycling rates have both curbside recycling programs AND bottle bills. We have ample documentation in NY on how deposits reduce litter - something curbside programs are not designed for or effective at. If Nestle's is trying to project an image of being an environmentally responsible company, this article fails dismally.

Bill Shireman, Future500, January 3, 2011 - 06:08

I agree - bottle bills actually create tiny bureaucracies. It's one of their best features. California is the only exception, and that's because the savings under that model - due to the central fund - can be used for other purposes. The recent abuses by the states of CA, NY, and CT make a good case for a third-party fund.

It would be nice to see some fresh thinking on the pro-deposit side. It would sure make life easier for those of us sincerely working to find solutions that can bring the two sides together. It's comforting to assume there's no possibility of a genuinely better approach, and just keep losing, but it's better to win.

Ben C -- December 23, 2010 - 08:07

Rethink bottled water.... This is all an effort to pass the buck on to the consumer. Now waiting for Keep America Beautiful to sign on. It's not time for Extended Producer Responsibility, it's time for FULL producer responsibility. How about being fully responsible for litter clean up, fully responsible for the pollution of making your products, fully responsible for the health impacts of your products on consumers and communities where your products are made. Interesting to note that Nestle's consultant and likely ghostwriter of this simplistic and self-serving piece is likely, Bill Shireman, the father of California's highly successful bottle bill. Also, Natural Logic... how about disclosing your client in this effort to kill bottle bills is Coke?

Gil Friend, Natural Logic -- December 24, 2010 - 14:37

I hope the people who reference the Natural Logic's EPR white paper have actually read it. (http://www.natlogic.com/EPR) It doesn't oppose bottle deposit policies (which several commenters have correctly called "the first EPR"). It does propose extending the effectiveness of well-designed financial mechanisms to a more comprehensive materials management solution.

Bottle bills work -- for bottles. Deposits on computers, tires, car batteries, etc work -- for those commodities. But though recovery rates are high, these are a small fraction of the waste stream; the challenge we face is to reduce, reuse, recover and recycle _most_ of that waste stream, not just subsets. EPR can put the responsibility for effective recovery and recycling of materials that will become "waste" on the producer (or first importer) of those materials. That financial responsibility can provide: financial incentive to producers to redesign products and packaging to be less resource intensive, less toxic and more recyclable; financial incentives to support or create effective end-of-life recycling; and financial relief to local government that bear much of that burden today.

The good news is that there's momentum for EPR around the country. Here in California, CalRecycle "seeks a comprehensive approach for advancing EPR" and its predecessor, the California Integrated Waste Management Board, "adopted a set of Strategic Directives that included Strategic Directive 5: Producer Responsibility: This policy directs staff to seek statutory authority to foster "cradle-to-cradle" producer responsibility and develop producer-financed and producer-managed systems for product discards. Numerous local governments in California have demonstrated their support by adopting producer responsibility resolutions (hosted by the California Product Stewardship Council)." But it can't succeed fast enough if it proceeds only product by product. We need "framework" legislation that greatly broadens the reach of the Extended Producer Responsibility / Product Steward approach.

To Sara Ost and Ben C's comments on putting the costs on the consumers: We disagree with Mr Jeffery's suggestion that consumers pay fees associated with their purchases, and tend to favor having producers pay fees associated with their production. There are arguments for both approaches, and we have not yet done the modeling to assess their relative merits. But it's not a simple either/or. If the fees are borne by producers, they may choose to pass costs on to consumers; on the other hand, producers that do a good job of lightening their footprints would pay less, and thus gain a market advantage. (By the way, to Ben C's call for "full" not "extended" producer responsibility, we completely agree; we just used the currently familiar term.)

There are many questions to be resolved -- some of them technically or logistically difficult, and some which require challenges to long-held and comfortable habits. But that's how innovation happens, and that's the kind of dialog we hoped to contribute to in producing our White Paper.

Yes, our work was conducted under contract to Coca-Cola -- and we made clear at the start that while our brains are for hire, our integrity and opinions are never for sale. We listened to Coke, to the stakeholders who participated in our Innovation Charrette, and various other reviewers. We took all their perspectives into account, and we drew our own conclusions (as we do in all out efforts to help companies and communities design, implement and measure profitable, effective sustainability strategies). And we made the recommendations that we thought best. We look forward to further exploration, and we're happy to participate in any forum in which our perspective and experience might be helpful.

Tex Corley, Strategic Materials -- December 24, 2010 - 06:26

Mr. Jeffery points in the right direction?

Years ago Jeffery said Deposits were the answer. The Natural Logic Paper was paid for by the Beverage industry to support their position against deposits. Deposits --- the first EPR --- work --- period.

So you think throwing everything into one bucket then crushing the heck out of it is the answer? The question must be --- How do you make junk? Talk to the companies that, either use or process that junk --- they all know Single Stream is the problem, not the answer. Can single stream get better? Maybe, but once the egg is scrambled it is very difficult and costly to unscramble it.

Posted by Guy Crittenden at 11:33 AM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

Here's an interesting article from The Gazette about the changing politics of deposits in Quebec. Enjoy.

A plea to province: Don't drop the bottle

By MICHELLE LALONDE
The Gazette December 27, 2010

Retailers and recycling centres concede that bringing in a deposit system on wine and spirit bottles would get more bottles recycled, but they claim this environmental gain would be cancelled out by an increase in transport emissions.

It’s that time of year again, when our recycling bins and bags are bulging with wine and spirit bottles and I am once again reminded of the Quebec government’s stubborn refusal to adopt a deposit-return system for these containers.

All Canadian provinces and territories, except Quebec and Saskatchewan, require deposits on their wine and spirit bottles, a small extra fee added to the price and returned to the consumer when the empty container is returned to the retailer.

Why does virtually every other province use a deposit-return system?

Because deposit-return systems, combined with curbside recycling, produce the best results for recovering and recycling glass, metal, cardboard and plastic; all reusable resources.

Ontario recently announced it has recycled its 1 billionth container since that province brought in a deposit system on wine and spirit containers four years ago. Last year, 77 per cent of the wine and spirit containers sold under Ontario’s “Bag it Back” deposit program were returned and recycled, up from 68 per cent before the deposit system was adopted.

Only about 60 per cent of wine bottles are recycled in Quebec each year. The Société des alcools du Quebec, Quebec’s liquor retailer, is aiming to get to a 70 per cent recovery rate by 2015.

Not very ambitious for a province that likes to claim it is the greenest in Canada.

Quebec is certainly No. 1 in the country in terms of wine consumption. Each of us polishes off, on average, 21.4 litres of wine each year, or 28.5 standard bottles of wine. That’s a lot of glass; about 80,000 metric tonnes of glass containers annually. And about 40 per cent of that glass – 32,000 metric tonnes – ends up wasted and taking up precious space at landfill sites.

Beer bottles, on the other hand, are recycyled at a rate of almost 95 per cent. Not only that, but each beer bottle is reused at least 10 times. There is, of course, a deposit on beer bottles.

But instead of moving closer to this more effective system, the Quebec government seems to be considering a move in the opposite direction.

Last month, Environment Minister Pierre Arcand announced Récyc Québec, the government agency that manages the deposit system on beer bottles and other beverage containers, will be absorbed into the department in the spring.

At the same time, Arcand is re-examining the existing deposit system on other beverage containers, like soft drinks and energy drinks, in the context of the government’s new waste management policy. The minister also recently added to his staff a lobbyist from ÉcoEntreprises Québec, an industry lobby group that represents the SAQ, other large beverage retailers as well as certain recycling centres, on recycling issues. ÉcoEntreprises Québec frowns on deposit systems, and would like to see them abolished.

“There is a lot of pressure to stop the deposit system in Quebec,” said Karel Maynard, of the Front Commun Québécois pour un gestion écologique des déchets, a group that advocates for environmentally responsible waste management.

“Certain players, such as the recycling centres, want those cans and plastic bottles (that currently have deposits on them) in the recycling bins,” and not returned to the retailer by the consumer, he said.

And since many recycling centres are paid by the weight of the materials they pick up and sort, they want to keep glass in the recycling bins. Glass makes up about 20 per cent of the weight in the average recycling bin.

Environmental groups say not only should wine and spirit bottles carry deposits, but deposit rates on other beverage containers should be raised to encourage compliance. Deposit rates have stayed virtually the same since 1984. For example, an empty soft drink can is still worth only five cents. That kind of pocket change doesn’t inspire a lot of people to go out of their way to return a container to the store rather than to chuck it in the garbage.

Ménard says the government should be actively promoting public participation in deposit-return programs, the way it promotes recycling.

Retailers and recycling centres concede that bringing in a deposit system on wine and spirit bottles would get more bottles recycled, but they insist this environmental gain would be cancelled out by an increase in transportation emissions. They also say the overall cost of the system would rise, because many wine bottles will still end up in the recycling bins. The beverage industry pays municipalities part of the cost of curbside recycling, and they would have to cover the cost of a deposit-return system, too.

I don’t buy either argument. Trucks that deliver beer and wine and other beverages can pick up empties and bring them back to the plant. Consumers will drive to and from the SAQ, whether they are bringing back empties or not.

And if there is an increased cost to bringing in a proper deposit-return system that doesn’t increase fuel emissions, the industry should pay that cost, in accordance with the “polluter pay” philosophy. The Environment Department will be studying these issues over the next couple of years. One hopes it will come to its senses and broaden the deposit-return system, rather than abolish it.

In the meantime, what’s an environmentally conscious wine lover to do? Make your own wine. Or buy your wine at bulk retailers where you can refill your own bottles (Vin en Vrac, for example, at 2021 des Futailles St.) Write to Quebec’s environment minister to demand a deposit-return program on wine and spirit bottles.

Personally, I plan to drink more beer than wine or spirits this holiday season. It’s a sacrifice I’m willing to make for the planet. Cheers.

Read more: http://www.montrealgazette.com/technology/plea+province+drop+bottle/4028770/story.html#ixzz1ABQJ28FC

Posted by Guy Crittenden at 8:26 PM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

Happy New Year!

Back after a great holiday in Canmore. Skiing was good at Lake Louise and Sunshine; besides, any day in the mountains is a good day!

2011 will be a year of politics in Canada. In October there will be an election in Ontario and there’s another threat of a Federal Election this spring as Prime Minister Harper, and his conservative government, bring down a new budget. Then there is the ongoing turmoil in British Columbia with a new Leader coming in for the governing Liberal Party. These are just a few of the hot spots.

And, through it all, the environment continues to be a key player. However, the main players who are responsible for government policy and direction, in nearly every government, remain a “revolving door”.

Prime Minister Harper announced a Cabinet shuffle this morning where he named Peter Kent, an MP from the Greater Toronto Area, as the new Federal Minister of Environment. As part of the announcement the Toronto Star used this opening statement; “WHERE DID HE GO WRONG?” referring to Mr. Kent.

Here is the political reality. Peter Kent is the fifth Minister of Environment in the Harper Government in five years! Hence the Star’s headline and the inference that nobody wants the job!

In my book, TRASHED, I point out that, over a fourteen year period from 1990 to 2004, while working to develop and get Environmental Approval for the Adams Mine Landfill, I went through ten different Ministers of Environment in Ontario. I worked through the Liberals, the NDP, the Conservatives and then the Liberal government for a second time.

This represented a Minister’s average term of less than a year and a half in the portfolio – hardly time for a new Minister to find his desk let alone learn the strengths and weaknesses of the ministry staff, educate his or her own people and get a grasp on the important issues.

I recall that, in Ontario, Liberal Jim Bradley was beginning to make a positive impact and, for the Conservatives, Tony Clement would have developed effective policies if Mike Harris had left him in the portfolio for more than seven months. It did not happen.

In reality this continual “revolving door” of Environment Ministers, at all levels of government, makes it extremely difficult for business and industry to develop a dialogue, or constructive relationship, with the government in power. The politician views it is a “no-win” portfolio and he or she invariably wants out of it as soon as possible.

In all cases governments proclaim, in loud voices, that they are committed to the environment. However, they never leave a Minister in place long enough for us to have any belief in that commitment or to allow any long term policies and relationships to develop.

Maybe Peter Kent will stay longer than one year. Let’s hope so!

www.trashedpoliticalgarbage.com
TRASHED! How Political Garbage Made the United States Canada’s Largest Dump

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Since it's just after Christmas I thought readers might enjoy this thought provoking article about electronic gadgets such as cell phones that we replace very frequently in our wasteful culture.

Getting Over Our Two-Year Itch

By DAVID POGUE

New York Times, December 31, 2010

Every year, we buy zillions of music players, digital cameras and cellphones — and then, a couple of years later, send them to the nearest trash bin. “New every two” isn’t just Verizon’s offer to sell you a new, discounted phone every 24 months; it also describes the average person’s consumption habits for cameras, phones and other gadgets.

Unfortunately, no matter how well intentioned the consumer, it’s hard to fulfill that pledge to recycle, at least when it comes to electronic gadgetry. The phrase “sustainable electronics manufacturing” is almost an oxymoron, like “humble actor.”

That’s because the electronics industry itself is built upon frequent renewal. The iPhone, iPod or iPad you buy today will be obsolete within a year. Every pocket camera model on sale today will no longer be sold six months from now. And Android phones — forget it. They seem to come out every Friday afternoon.

Does technology really advance that quickly? Or is planned obsolescence at work? It doesn’t matter. In the end, we’re as much to blame as the electronics companies. The manufacturers are simply catering to some fundamental human drives. It’s style; it’s status; it’s the confidence of knowing that we’re not missing out on anything. Owning outdated technology makes us feel outdated ourselves.

Are there solutions? In hopes of harnessing much brighter brain power, I asked my 1.3 million followers on Twitter for suggestions.

The response was surprisingly lively and voluminous. Unfortunately, most people weren’t hopeful. “It’s not the gadgets — it’s the people,” wrote @calcrash. “We have an entire A.D.D. generation that demands new toys and features.”

A sizable number of people suggested that the industry should stop cranking out so many models so often. As @jatkin02 wrote, “Gadget does one thing, does it well, does it forever by design, with as few fail points as possible.” Several respondents pointed out that a Rolex watch is so finely crafted that it’s handed down through generations.

Sounds good on paper — or on Twitter. Unfortunately, electronics aren’t watches. They’re expected to explode in functions each year, to leapfrog what has come before. Your son might be proud to receive your 30-year-old Rolex — but a 4-year-old cellphone would just embarrass him.

Another enthusiastic group proposed designing gadgets to be more modular — popping a newer, faster chip into your old cellphone, for instance.

This proposal, too, is unrealistic. What’s in it for the manufacturers? It’s much more profitable for them to sell you a whole new gadget. Besides, there’s more to a gadget than its processor. The current iPhone, for example, has not just a different chip than the previous model but also a different screen, battery, interior electronics and connectors. Everything is integrated.

A third, equally doomed suggestion: rely on software upgrades, not new hardware, to add new features each year. Sure, but many manufacturers already do that. Apple’s annual software updates for the iPhone, iPad and iPod Touch add new features to previous years’ models. Google’s frequently enhanced versions of the Android phone software are generally available to all older phone models as well. Microsoft’s Xbox upgrades benefit older generations of the game console, too.

In each case, though, new software can take you only so far. You can’t add video-recording features to a phone that doesn’t have a camera.

Fortunately, my Twitter focus group did come up with suggestions that would take us to a greener gadget world — without denying the public its “new every two” or depriving the manufacturers of their profits. For example:

• “Include prepaid recycling envelopes with new gadgets, like HP does with ink cartridges, to encourage recycling instead of trashing,” wrote @megazone. Most computer companies already offer free but little-known recycling programs for old gadgets, so this suggestion could work.

• Standardize connectors and accessories. In Europe, for example, every cellphone uses the same kind of power cord — micro USB — so people no longer accumulate boxes of orphaned, incompatible adapters. In time, manufacturers could stop including these standard cables in every box, saving money and redundancy.

• “Make recycling mandatory or charge a fee,” @eclisham suggested. And @timqpeterson proposed a bribe to slow down the upgrade cycle — a “rebate option for keeping the same phone for more than a specific amount of time.”

• Persuade the industry to use more recyclable materials, like biodegradable plastics. Some companies, including Apple, have developed amazingly minimalist packaging, which sends as little material as possible to the landfill.

Good suggestions. But what would make manufacturers adopt them? Since the current disposability model is supremely profitable, what incentive do they have to change?
Well, the government could get involved. After all, the European Union manufacturers standardized their cellphone power cords only after it was mandated. Companies adopting sustainable materials like corn or soy oil for their plastics could earn tax breaks. New laws could require recycling or encourage longer gadget use.

For those not so keen on government mandates, there is consumer pressure. Whether it’s hormone-free milk or organic cotton clothing, if an issue bubbles up, change happens. Perhaps sustainability could become a marketing tool, not a hidden cost.

Time could also mitigate the problem. When a product matures — when the feature list becomes standard — our incentive to buy “new every two” declines. For example, who buys a new PC every other year anymore? Nobody buys a new TV every other year, or a clock radio, or even a camcorder. Surely cellphones, cameras and GPS units will get there someday.
For now, you can recycle your old gadget. Take or mail your old electronics to a Radio Shack or a Best Buy store. Both accept a huge range of old junk, like TVs, printers, monitors, cables, cellphones, remotes and headphones. And you get more than the rosy glow of doing the right thing; depending on your state, you can also get either an instant discount or a gift card, good toward future purchases. Here are the details on the Best Buy program and Radio Shack’s.
Or look into Web sites like Gazelle.com, the largest “recommerce” site. Gazelle pays shipping both ways (even sends you a box), pays you for your old electronics, then resells it on eBay or recycles it.

My Twitter followers also recommended Freecycle.org (you give away your gear), Cellphonesforsoldiers.com and 911cellphonebank.org (provides old phones to victim services organizations for emergency use).

So there are steps you can take now, and there is some hope for longer-term change. In the meantime, cheer up: new models of gadgets like cellphones tend to get smaller over time. At the very least, that means they take up less space in the landfill every year.

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Posted by Guy Crittenden at 1:56 PM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)