Bill 102, first introduced in the legislature last spring, was to have producers of all recyclable packaging and products pay for up to half the cost of recycling their materials, to compensate municipalities and encourage them to increase their recycling efforts.
Quebec municipalities spent an estimated $50 million on recycling, so the bill envisaged industry paying a maximum of $25 million. The original version had the packaging industry paying 60 percent of that tab, while the publicity industry (producers of flyers, catalogues, etc.) and the media industry (producers of newspapers and magazines) were to pay about 20 percent each.
That would work out to about $5 million a year for newspapers and magazines.
But the industry, represented by Récycle Média, has since negotiated an agreement with the government to amend their portion to $1.3 million per year for the first five years that the law is in force.
That works out to a net loss for municipalities of $18.5 million over five years.
And instead of paying in cash, media outlets can instead publish free public service advertisements on recycling.
Récyle Média spokesperson Francois Houle said newspaper owners argued that since there is a better market for recycled newsprint than other recycled materials, newspapers are already reducing the cost of recycling for cities.
"We also succeeded in persuading them that newspapers and magazines are not garbage," Houle said.
He said many newspapers are not profitable to survive if they have to fork over another tax, especially smaller community newspapers and weeklies.
Many magazines are made to be kept for longer periods, and are not short-term use items, they argued. They should be considered like books, which are not targeted by this law. - Montreal Gazette