Canadian Groups Support Ontario Legislation

Consumer products industries and related associations are voicing their support of the Ontario Government's introduction of legislation that ensures long-term funding support of the province's blue box/blue bag recycling program.

"This legislation signals the beginning of a new era in the development of cost-effective, sustainable municipal waste diversion programs in Ontario. CSR: Corporations Supporting Recycling, whose members include many of the largest manufacturers and distributors of consumer products in Canada, look forward to working with the Environment Minister, Ontario municipalities and other industry sectors to make Waste Diversion Ontario a success," said CSR president and CEO, Damian Bassett.

"While CSR's members have voluntarily supported the development of municipal recycling programs in Ontario over the past 15 years, we are pleased that this new legislation will ensure that all companies whose products are managed through the curbside recycling and household special waste programs pay their fair share of the net costs of these programs.

"The legislation will allow for the implementation of the 'shared responsibility' model unanimously recommended by the Waste Diversion Organization's public and private sector participants. It also will ensure that incentives are put in place to encourage all the partners - industry, municipalities and citizens - to divert more waste from disposal at a reasonable cost," Bassett said.

CSR is an industry-funded organization with a voluntary membership drawn from consumer packaged goods industries (grocery products manufacturers and distributors, packaging material suppliers and manufacturers, soft drink manufacturers, meat processing and printed paper users).

BIR Welcomes Shipment Control Harmonization

The Bureau of International Recycling welcomed the adoption by the OECD Council of the Decision “C(2001)107 Revision of Decision C(92)39 Final on the Control of Transboundary Movements of Wastes Destined for Recovery Operations” on 14^th June 2001.

BIR agrees that this decision meets its intention to streamline the OECD control system, be more economically efficient and environmentally safe, and enhance harmonisation with the Basel Convention.

Over the last two years, BIR has contributed to the OECD Working Group on Waste Management Policy regarding their harmonisation work on intra-OECD shipments of waste under the umbrella of Business and Industry Advisory Council to the OECD.

The major points of benefit for the recycling industry are the following:

The definition for ‘a mixture of wastes’ is new and specifies this as ‘a waste that results from an intentional or unintentional mixing of two or more different wastes’. It goes further by stating that ‘a single shipment of wastes, consisting of two or more wastes, where each waste is separated, is not a mixture of wastes.’

The applicable control procedure for mixtures of green wastes, for which no individual entry exists, shall now be ‘green’. The condition for this is that the composition of this mixture does not impair its environmentally sound recovery. On the other hand, a mixture of green waste and more than a minimal amount of amber waste, or a mixture of amber wastes, will be subjected to the amber control procedure, under the condition that the composition of the mixture does not impair its environmentally sound recovery.

Helpfully, the decision proposes that member countries may exempt from the notification procedure samples of up to 25 kg for laboratory analysis that are appropriately packaged and labeled.

The harmonisation is accomplished by replacing the OECD green, amber and red waste lists by the Basel Convention Annexes. Annex IX becomes the Decision’s Appendix 3 Part I, now to be subjected to green controls; Annexes VIII and II become the Decision’s Appendix 4 Part I, now to be subjected to amber controls. The Decision retains the possibility for different controls in exceptional cases. Whilst it eliminates the OECD review mechanism, it puts any review of lists into the single forum of the Basel Convention Technical Working Group.