Alberta Reclaim and Recycling, an Edmonton, Alberta, recycling company, along with its two owners, have been assessed with a fine of $871,928 for bringing in containers from outside the province of Alberta and being reimbursed through the province’s bottle deposit program.
The company was hit with 15 violations, each with a fine of $5,000, bringing the administrative penalty to $75,000. Along with the penalty, the province assessed the company and its owners an additional fine of $800,000 under the province’s Economic Benefit Assessment of the illegal activity that the company undertook over several years.
The penalty initially was issued by the Alberta Environment and Parks (AEP) for violations of the province’s Beverage Container Recycling Regulation under the Environmental Protection and Enhancement Act.
AEP determined the company and its two owners, Johnny Ha and Shawn Diep, transported beverage containers into the province to a nonpermitted bottle depot they operated in Edmonton, obtained refunds for the containers and failed to comply with the terms and conditions of the permit for the operation of the depot.
The initial fine and penalty was $850,000. However, the company and the two owners appealed the fine, which led to the province correcting some errors in the calculations and increasing the total charge to $871,928.
The decision follows a appeals hearing that was held July 19, 2016, with respect to the Feb. 20, 2015, decision, made by the AEP director, which issued Administrative Penalty No. 15/01-AP-RDNSR-15/01 in the amount of $844,778 to Alberta Reclaim and Recycling Co. Inc., as well as to Ha and Diep for transporting and accepting beverage containers into the Province of Alberta for the purpose of operating a nonpermitted bottle depot,obtaining refunds for the beverage containers and failing to comply with the terms and conditions of its issued permit when operating the Andrew Bottle Depot.
In its ruling the Appellate Board upheld the classification of each of the offences as being major offenses with major impacts on the environment. To recognize the different times when Diep and Ha were sole directors of Alberta Reclaim and Recycling, the board varied the administrative penalty and instead issued two administrative penalties, dividing the penalties accordingly.
The province says that between January 2011 and January 2013 about 738,600 pounds of crushed and baled beverage containers were delivered to the warehouse from a recycling facility in the Yukon territory.
Based on information provided by Canada’s Beverage Container Management Board (BCMB), there was a 1,070 percent increase in beverage container returns at the Andrew Bottle Depot from 2010 to 2011 and 2012 as the annual returns increased from 564,770 containers in 2010 to more than 6.4 million containers in 2011 and 6.6 million containers in 2012.
In its ruling, the Alberta Environmental Appeals Board determined : the increase in returns at the Andrew Bottle Depot roughly corresponded to the number of beverage containers (7.9 million) that were estimated to have been brought from the Yukon to the warehouse; an estimated 2.08 million containers, with an estimated deposit value of $255,300, were seized at the warehouse; from January 2012 to January 2013, an estimated 8,331,993 beverage containers worth an estimated $972,061 in deposit returns were transported into Alberta by the company and were introduced into the deposit refund system through the Andrew Bottle Depot as if they were Alberta beverage containers; the beverage containers processed through the warehouse went to the Andrew Bottle Depot to collect the refund for the beverage containers while the company owned and operated the Andrew Bottle Depot; the company received $53,000 in handling fees for beverage containers that were from outside of Alberta after the company received the permit from the BCMB; and an estimated $1,025,070 were paid to the company for deposit refunds and handling fees out of the beverage container refund system.