There were two stories that caught my eye today.

In London, Ontario there is some debate about whether or not to rescind the ban on bottled water at City Hall and municipal facilities.

The other story that caught my eye was a column (Taking on Eco-tyranny) by the National Post’s Lorne Gunther decrying having to pay for plastic bags at his local drugstore.

Plastic always seems to be a lightning rod for environmental heat.

With regard to bottled water it is the City’s contention that the low cost and high quality tap water it distributes to its residents and business is sufficient and it does not need to sell bottled water to compete with its product. Selling bottled water somehow suggests that its water is not the good stuff, to borrow another’s marketing mantra. A subtlety for sure, but with a less subtle message.

Nestle Waters, a key local supplier of bottled water of course sees it differently. It sees it more as a matter of choice and that if someone wants to buy a bottle of water say as opposed to a soft drink or juice that they should be able to do so. They contend that water bottles generate but a small amount of waste, which is largely recycled.

Plastic bags were once so ubiquitous and freely dispensed you really had to wonder what was going on. Bags with two or three items at the grocery store were not uncommon. With some notable exceptions they were generally poorly recycled. The days of cupboards under kitchen sinks clogged with plastic bags is now mostly gone. And was it really that hard?

It really all comes down to how we consume. In the 1990s environmentalists noted that we were a “consumer society”. You would think that 20 years and a plethora of environmental initiatives later that that our society would have changed. In fact the opposite has happened. We live in a society where there are coffee shops on every corner dispensing millions of marginally recyclable cups per day. Sure the choice to use a reusable mug is there but really who does? We measure our society’s success not in what we manufacture but consumer confidence. Are people confident enough to go to the mall to spend money they probably do not have to buy whatever?

Somewhere it does need to stop. Water bottles and plastic bags are pretty feeble icons but they are an easy place to start. People understand what they are and can actually do something about it. It may well be that creating this awareness is greater than the sum of its environmental benefits but I think it helps people realize the impact of their consumption and hopefully spur other changes to use their resources more wisely.

It is however easy to understand if not sympathize with the other side of the argument. It’s is a tough sell for many of us when we are told how to live right down to minutiae of whether or not to use a plastic carry our sack or drink water out of a plastic bottle.

As Gunther puts it”

“So expect the push to ban shopping bags to intensify rather than wane, because environmentalism isn't as much about saving the planet as it is about environmentalists proving their moral superiority and getting to tell everyone else how to live.”

A bit harsh to be sure, but a not uncommon sentiment. You don’t want to tell people how to live- just advise them of their choices.

The benefit to raising these arguments, however, is not to dictate how we live our lives but rather to help us understand the impacts of our choices.

While unfairly maligned the lowly plastic bottle and plastic bag may yet point to a way beyond our rampant consumerism.

Posted by Paul at 5:41 PM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

I thought I'd pass this along for interested parties

Product Policy Institute

Job Posting for Associate Director

Product Policy Institute was founded in 2003 to work at the intersection of production, consumption and waste management issues. We are a small nonprofit organization active across North America with headquarters in Athens, Georgia. Our research documented the rapid rise in product and packaging waste over the last century and proposed that municipal “welfare for waste” has enabled the explosion of disposable and toxic products and packaging. Armed with this knowledge, PPI has been instrumental in organizing communities and their local governments to work for state producer responsibility legislation. Thanks in part to PPI’s work, the U.S. is entering a high legislative phase for the policy approach for we have been advocating: Extended Producer Responsibility (EPR) for products and packaging waste. To learn more about us, visit our website at www.productpolicy.org

Product Policy Institute’s new position of Associate Director will work closely with the Executive Director to ensure that programs are consistent with the vision as set forth in PPI’s long-range strategic plan and annual operating plan; and to represent PPI’s programs and point-of-view to government officials, NGOs, businesses, associations, the press, and the public.

The Associate Director will have the experience, credibility and stature to take the lead in conducting research and translating significant trends and information into actionable findings and key issues pertaining to EPR legislation, regulation and implementation. The Associate Director will work with the Executive Director on programs, communications, administration and fundraising to ensure the organization’s sustainability, integrity, and consistent achievement of its mission.

Ideally, we are looking for an attorney, environmental scientist or policy expert with EPR experience who is located in the northeast, on the west coast or possibly located in the Midwest who can telecommunicate and bring geographical expansion to PPI in areas where we currently have high-profile activity.

Qualifications:

-- Prefer J.D., graduate degree in a science, environmental policy or mediation field related to the organization’s purpose; or equivalent experience or expertise.

-- Self-starter with ten-years of experience in the environmental field.

-- Demonstrated experience in research, public speaking, nonprofit administration, volunteer management, fundraising and public relations.

Please submit a cover letter and resume to associatedirector@productpolicy.org. Salary is $60,000 plus benefits ($5,000 flex medical, ten holidays plus two weeks paid vacation, retirement match after one year). The position will remain open until it is filled.

No calls please.

PPI is an equal opportunity employer.

Posted by Guy Crittenden at 2:38 PM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

According to the Athens, Georgia-based Product Policy Institute (PPI), Maine’s new Governor Paul LePage (R) is proposing to keep state recycling programs on the dole, and cut fee-based take-back programs paid for by manufacturers and their customers.

The development is significant for people interested in end-of-life management of products and packaging, and who pays for it. The PPI think tank has long advocated for the replacement of inefficient municipal curbside recycling programs (that have hit a plateau for certain materials like used beverage containers) with fee-based product stewardship programs operated or overseen by manufacturers and brand owners. Until recently Maine has been the standard-bearer for the most progressive stewardship legislation in the country. Stewardship battles won or lost in Maine could have wide-ranging implications in other jurisdictions.

In her posting to a PPI-operated discussion group, Jenny Hopkinson quotes a source saying: “What’s amazing about the governor’s proposal to roll back product stewardship is that it effectively means bigger government and higher taxes,” adding that the move seems ironic given LePage’s drive to limit both. “His proposal would have the exact opposite of what he thinks it will do.”

Governor LePage’s proposal for perpetuating “welfare for waste” will “Review all consumer products recycling and ‘take-back’ statutes and revise as necessary to develop a policy that ensures that manufacturers do not have to pay to recycle their consumer products and that these standards do not exceed those set in federal law.”

See Phase I of Governor’s Regulatory Reform Proposals released on January 25 (http://www.maine.gov/legis/opla/phase1gov.pdf), which contains many similar proposals targeting other regulations. Writes PPI Executive Director Bill Sheehan, “And that’s only Phase 1!” Other relevant documents are available on InsideEPA.com

According to the February 4 posting, Maine’s new governor is pushing to eliminate financial incentives for consumers and otherwise change state laws that require manufacturers to ensure several types of consumer products are recycled. This is part of an effort to reduce what LePage calls burdensome regulations on business.

Major changes to Maine’s five producer responsibility programs could negatively impact proposals for new product stewardship programs and, advocates say, the changes are coming before a thorough assessment can be made of how the existing programs have performed and whether or not they are, in fact, “bad for business.” Worse, local governments will have to again pay for disposal costs if the programs are eliminated.

A spokeswoman for the governor says many of the proposals were taken directly from comments made at what LePage called more than 20 “red-tape” roundtables with business owners and residents. Some observers believe that, in truth, to plan to quash product stewardship laws comes from manufacturers outside of Maine who are fighting such laws across the country so they don’t have to pay. It comes as no surprise that industry prefers ratepayer-funded schemes that cost it little or nothing.

In her posting, Hopkinson writes that, “Maine has one of the most comprehensive take-back programs in the country – second only to California – with five laws covering electronics, mercury thermostats, automobile switches, batteries and fluorescent lamps that require manufacturers to pay for their return. For example, home thermostat manufacturers must pay $5 for each mercury thermostat returned through the take-back program, the payment acting as a financial incentive to contractors and individuals to turn the device in.

“The state last year also enacted the nation’s first product stewardship framework law, which passed by a unanimous vote of the legislature. The law, which sets up a process for reviewing existing product stewardship laws and proposing new programs, calls for the state Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) to annually draft a report recommending new products and any needed changes to existing laws.

“A draft of the 2010 report, entitled ‘Implementing Product Stewardship in Maine,’ was released for comment in December. In it, DEP recommended adding household hazardous waste including paint, unused pharmaceuticals and medical sharps to the product stewardship program, as well as modifying existing laws to include incentives for the recovery of mercury-added lamps and relief for small businesses from handling costs for electronic waste (Superfund Report, Jan. 10).

“Bills have been submitted to the legislature for those products, but their fate is unclear given the Republican wins in the statehouse in November’s election. Democrats lost roughly 50 seats in the legislature, as well as the governor’s mansion, giving Republicans control of the state for the first time in more than three decades.

“The shift in power could prevent the final release of the DEP report, according to product stewardship advocates. Since the framework law provides the DEP commissioner with discretion not to issue a report, it is unclear whether the new DEP commissioner, Darryl Brown, will finalize the draft report and send it to the legislature. Brown, who took office Feb. 1, was the owner of a land development consultancy firm before being nominated to be DEP commissioner.”

It’s ironic that in Maine, at least, conservative politicians are aligning themselves with centrally-planned schemes in which government, not industry, will manage materials like mercury and other hazardous wastes despite the evidence that when consumers have a financial incentive to participate in take-back programs, far more of such materials are returned for recycling or safe disposal, and kept out of the nation’s landfills and the environment.

Hopkinson writes, “Any changes to the existing laws will require an act of the legislature. A newly formed joint committee of the state Senate and House of Representatives is reviewing the governor’s proposals and conducting public hearing in preparation for submitting a bill should the committee deem it necessary. The governor’s office has no say over what will go into the legislation, which is expected to be submitted as one package known as L.D. 1… The committee will also take into account additional proposals for regulatory change that the governor is expected to release shortly. If a bill is introduced, lawmakers will have until June, the end of the legislative session, to pass or reject it.”

Posted by Guy Crittenden at 9:18 AM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

I was saddened to hear of the recent passing of Jack McGinnis.

Although I cannot claim to have known him well, having met him only on a few occasions, the impact of what he and his colleagues accomplished have impacted what I and many of us do every day.

I was in grade seven when Jack and others launched what would become the Blue Box program. By that that point I had already made up my mind that I wanted to have a career in the environment. It was pretty amorphous at that point. I think I thought I would like to be a vet and own an animal sanctuary.

I cannot claim to know what Jack and his colleagues were up to back then. They certainly lit a fire about how we think about waste and its management. Revolution may or may not be too strong of a description but his actions have led to all of us looking at waste a little differently. It led to a good portion of residential stream and the IC&I stream finding new homes. It led to the creation of new commodities from items that were once deemed as worthless. While the value of these commodities has at times been shaky, as the ebb and flow of market value plays with them, they are now clearly established.

These actions in turn led to a fixed gaze on organic wastes- starting first with backyard composting to today’s large scale composting of source separated organic wastes. Composting was my point of entry into the waste management industry back in the early 1990s. It was new and exciting like I imagine the launch of the Blue Box was. You felt like what you were doing could make some difference even when you stepped back and realized how unglamorous dealing with waste really is. It is fundamental though. We all generate it. It needs to be managed. We have the opportunity to do something better.

Jack and his colleagues opened a big door through which many have since walked. I feel a genuine debt of gratitude to Jack and others who opened these doors and set the stage for the waste diversion industry.

While I imagine Jack didn’t set out to revolutionize things and leave a legacy he did.

So I want to say two things.

Firstly, I want to say a simple thank-you. Thank-you for turning your passion into action. Thank-you for seeing this action through to the point where the ball was (and continues) rolling onwards.

Secondly, there is still much to be done. We need to challenge ourselves to turn our passions into actions, to try and make a difference where we can, and try to help to set the stage for the next generation who want to make a difference.

Posted by Paul at 11:50 AM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

The cost of green energy is becoming too much for many. Eric Reguly, a business columnist for the Globe and Mail, recently noted that a number of European countries are rolling back their subsidies for renewable energy. Reguly commented that; “green energy is becoming unaffordable and it may cost as many jobs as it creates”.... over to you Dalton!

I love the move by the western Provinces, in the last few months, to come out and state clearly that they are looking at Asia and China as viable markets for Canadian gas and oil. All of this is happening during a period when Washington is equivocating on the approval of TransCanada’s $7 billion Keystone XL pipeline.

There is a widespread propaganda effort by a wide range of environmental groups in the USA to stop, or delay, construction and their efforts have impacted on the policies of the Obama government. However, the tide may be turning with the realization that stopping this one pipeline will not stop the flow of oil-sand crude into the United States. The Washington Post, one of the most influential newspapers, recently published an editorial endorsing the construction of the pipeline. The turmoil in Egypt is only helping to show that Canada is a stable supplier.

The United States will always be our strongest and largest trading partner but there are other options out there. And, let’s face it, numerous studies show that Alberta, British Columbia and, to a lesser degree, Saskatchewan will be the economic engines that drive this country going forward. The traditional manufacturing base in Ontario and Quebec has been eroded. The economic and political leadership is shifting.

And now let’s talk about the politics of sport and the ongoing controversy in the National Hockey League over “head-shots” and concussions.

I give kudos to Andrew Ference of the Boston Bruins. He was right in suggesting that a team-mate was wrong to take a head-shot on an opponent. Don Cherry, and many others, ripped him for not being a team player. However, this week the Globe and Mail published an editorial praising his honesty. I have never met Mr. Ference but, as someone who has coached a number of sports over the years, he is a breath of fresh air. And, I am not saying this just because Andy and Jean, his father and mother, are my neighbours here in Canmore.

I’ll be taking a break for two weeks to visit Tampa and work on my golf game. Also, Elizabeth Fournier, who edits and posts these blogs for me, is off to the Caribbean for a vacation. So I am helpless but will be back soon.

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

Posted by Gordon McGuinty at 1:33 PM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

Interesting excerpt from Vermont's EPR Bill.

"A producer responsibility organization and its producer members may engage in anticompetitive behaviour to the extent necessary to develop and implement its producer responsibility plan.

In developing and implementing the plan, a producer responsibility organization is immune from liability for conduct under state laws relating to antitrust, restraint of sale, restraint of trade, unfair trade practices and other regulation of trade or commerce"

Adam Smith had something to say about collective Producer Responsibility Organizations (which are in effect organizations that tax their members to pay for recycling) in 1776 - the same year the United States of America declared independence...

"A regulation which obliges all those of the same trade in a particular town to enter their names and places of abode in a public register, facilitates such assemblies…. A regulation which enables those of the same trade to tax themselves in order to provide for their poor, their sick, their widows and orphans…renders such assemblies necessary. An incorporation not only renders them necessary, but makes the act of the majority binding upon the whole. In a free trade, an effectual combination cannot be established but by the unanimous consent of every single trader, and it cannot last longer than every single trader continues of the same mind. The majority of a corporation can enact a bye‐law, with proper penalties, which will limit the competition more effectually and more durably than any voluntary combination whatever."

The Wealth Of Nations, Book IV Chapter VIII, p. 145, paras. c29‐30.

Posted by Usman at 1:21 PM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

Jack McGinnis died last week at age 64 of complications related to lung disease. Jack, I just learned, had serious lung problems and for the past year was rarely without supplied oxygen, worked from home and had difficulty with things like climbing stairs.

However, Jack worked until the end, and his recently completed last piece of writing – an article about his client Canadian Liquid Processors (CLP) for out CleanTech Canada supplement – will appear in the forthcoming February/March edition of Solid Waste & Recycling magazine, as well as a short obituary.

I have invited people from the waste and recycling business to send me recollections of Jack, which I will run in this space and excerpt in an article in the April/May edition.

Jack was buried on Saturday, February 5, the driveway to the service lined (appropriately) with blue boxes.

While I await recollections, I offer this article from the Toronto Star on Friday that provides a summary of his life.

Father of the blue box' died this week

February 04, 2011

by Louise Brown

Jack McGinnis designed the world's first blue box program in 1977.

RON PIETRONIRO/METROLAND

Forty years ago, he was the guy who would pick up your bottles and cans if you put them out to the road, an offer that at the time just seemed weird.

What homeowner would want to haul an extra load to the curb? Why bother making house calls when Toronto already ran recycling depots? Besides, who’d want neighbors to see how many bottles they’d killed off each week?

But hippy-dippy chain-smoking environmentalist Jack McGinnis had a hunch people would recycle if it was made easy, and those early patrols through the Beach in his little pickup truck sparked an idea that would transform recycling.

By 1977, McGinnis had designed the world’s first blue box. His simple idea of a plastic box has become a curbside icon responsible for diverting 870,000 tonnes of material in Ontario every year and is used in millions of homes across North America, Australia and Europe.

McGinnis died this week at the age of 64.

“He was a visionary who knew if you give people the opportunity, they’ll do the right thing,” said former partner Derek Stephenson, who helped pilot test the idea of curbside recycling.

There was plenty of trial and error. For a pilot project in East York, “we had enough money to rent a few trucks and send out flyers but we didn’t provide a box so the stuff blew all over and kids threw the pop bottles on the road,” said Stephenson in an interview Thursday from Singapore, where he was consulting about recycling.

“Back then, we had no idea the scale this thing would go, but I do know so many people put out recycling, the weight of it bent the frame of the truck.”

Kitchener hosted the first municipal blue box program in 1981, where McGinnis decided it would be helpful to offer homeowners a plastic box not unlike the bins Knob Hill Farms used for groceries at that time, recalled Stephenson.

Next step was to design a slogan for the box, recalled Stephenson, “so we hand-stenciled ‘We Recycle’ on the side of the first 200 and people loved it.

“It let them tell the world that even if they couldn’t solve bigger environmental problems, at least they recycled.”

They chose blue, notes former McGinnis employee and friend Gail Lawlor, “because blue was the colour of plastic that resists the effects of the weather most. It wasn’t because of the alliteration of ‘blue box’ — but that was a bonus.

“Jack went on to become known as the Father of the Blue Box.”

McGinnis leaves a strong environmental legacy, as founder of the Recycling Council of Ontario and a non-profit environmental foundation called Is Five, taken from a phrase by poet e.e. cummings, “2 times 2 is 5,” meaning the whole is greater than the sum of its parts, said Tom Scanlan, who joined in some of those early Beach recycling rounds.

“How many people can come up with a simple idea — give people a box to put their recycling in — and actually figure out how to put it into practice?” asked Scanlan. “Jack was a pioneer.”

The “genius” of the blue box is its simplicity and elegance, said former employee Betty Muise. “He wanted to make putting out recycling as easy as putting out garbage — and he did.”

Blue box facts

1981

First blue box recycling program launched in Kitchener.

96%

of Ontario residents today have access to a blue box program

870,000

tonnes of materials now diverted through blue box programs

4.7 million

Ontario households use blue boxes

Posted by Guy Crittenden at 8:35 PM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

There was a story floating around the papers this week about a young child in Quebec who was not allowed to participate in an in-class draw for a stuffed animal for the egregious offence of daring to bring a sandwich to school in a Ziplock bag. It did not pass the environmental muster and the punishment was ostracization.

There is a big difference between teaching and coercion.

The problem here is that this does not teach a child this young anything but fear and the consequences of non-conformance. This is no teaching moment::- it is a fall into line or else moment. It is utterly ridiculous.

As eloquently put in the 3 February National Post editorial on the subject “Today’s green movement is as much about running other people’s lives as it is about saving the planet”. I would add that it is as much about meeting political ends as it is about meeting environmental ends. It is about creating a dogma and then inflicting it on everyone else. It is bad enough that we have to deal with this kind of nonsense as adults. It’s a sad statement that it has seeped into kindergarten.

I would suggest that most of us involved in the environmental industry became involved at least in part because of what we learned when we were young. We learned that the environment is in some ways imperiled through our proliferation and activities. We spend every day trying to make it a little better through better management of resources and better management of our wastes.

Informing and educating is the way to promoting environmental preservation and conservation forward. It does need to start at a young age and continue throughout our lives.

Punishing a kid with a ziplock bag is not the way to accomplish this.

Posted by Paul at 1:03 PM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

In an earlier blog I have talked about the great job Waste Management is doing with their media campaign in the United States and Canada. The “Think Green” slogan and the recent introduction of the “Bagster” have been great for the profile of both Waste Management and the waste industry.

Last year I mentioned how a golfer on the PGA tour, Charlie Hoffman, is sponsored by WM and won an event on tour. This weekend the PGA golf tour stops in Phoenix and Waste Management is the title sponsor. Now, if you are not a golfer, this event, being carried on the Golf Channel today and on NBC this weekend, may not be a big deal.

However, many of us are golfers and Waste Management has done the best job I have ever seen to capitalize on the visual images available in sponsoring an event.

There is the fantastic camera shot of the WM logo, created with thousands of golf balls, in a lake. Then they will receive extensive coverage on the par 3 sixteenth hole, where over 20,000 cheering fans go crazy with every shot. WM is doing a hell of a job. The only thing they don’t have is their name on the overhead BLIMP but I am sure they are working on it!

Through all of the company advertisements, and the on-course emphasis on recycling, WM provides a great message for the entire industry.

Tune in to the PGA tour for a few minutes; it will be worth it. Congratulations to the people at Waste Management who are making this happen.

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

Posted by Gordon McGuinty at 1:26 PM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

It has been my experience, over the past fourteen years, while dealing with people in opposition to projects that these people fit into a few select categories.

First, there are the “environmental zealots”. This group will oppose anything and everything that they feel has any impact on the environment. In many cases, this opposition represents a part-time or, in some cases, a full-time vocation. Reason is not normally part of their agenda.

Second, there are the “headline hunters”. This group includes environmentalists and politicians alike and they are usually individuals who want to gain notoriety and use their opposition to a project to revel in those thirty second sound bites on radio or television. On the Adams Mine project alone, at least five people who opposed the landfill near Kirkland Lake decided to run for political office. In my view this was a result of their becoming intoxicated with perceived fame.

Finally, there are the “reasonable environmentalists”. These Are Very Important People. They are the ones who take a rational approach, ask reasoned and rational questions and deserve reasoned and rational answers.

In my most recent blog I wrote that Bob McMurtry seems to fit that profile based on media reports I have read. Mr. McMurtry has been asking pointed questions regarding wind farms and their potential impact on people living in close proximity to the turbines.

Recent press reports in the Toronto Star state that Mr. McMurtry began as a strong advocate of wind power and its benefits, and supported the installation of turbines on his own property. However, during the ensuing process, based on his own research, he raised some questions.

Specifically, he asked about the impact of low-frequency noise resulting from the turbine operation, and asked if there were any scientific studies related to its impact. Seems there were none; at least none that have satisfied Mr. McMurtry. A reasonable man, he asked Queen’s Park for an independent study, and requested that greater set-backs for the turbines be considered until one was done. The government stalled, the industry objected, however, Mr. McMurtry persisted with his requests.

Like all environmental issues where communication breaks down, the fat has hit the fire. Mr. McMurtry has now provided a website www.windvigilance.com and there is also a government website with their information on the issue. Mr. McMurtry is not someone to be taken lightly. He is part of a body called the Society for Wind Vigilance with a membership that includes scientists and doctors concerned with the issue.

The Ontario Federation of Agriculture, a strong lobby in Ontario, is now calling for a moratorium on wind projects until a study is done. And now, right in the middle, with an election coming in the fall of this year, you’ll find my cousin Dalton. If you will forgive the pun, I would say his Green Energy plans are hanging precariously on a windmill.

I don’t know Mr. McMurtry but, it would seem to me, he fits into the important category of a reasonable environmentalist and he should not be ignored.

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

Posted by Gordon McGuinty at 1:11 PM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)