RRS receives Canadian Stewardship Services Alliance contract

Sustainability and recycling consultancy Resource Recycling Systems Inc. (RRS), headquartered in Ann Arbor, Michigan, has been awarded the material cost differentiation (MCD) contract with the Toronto-based Canadian Stewardship Services Alliance (CSSA) to redefine the methodology used in Canadian packaging and printed paper (PPP) recycling programs to determine the relative impacts of material characteristics on the cost of the recycling system.

CSSA is a national, nonprofit organization representing the interests of Canadian businesses and providing support services to four PPP stewardship programs across Canada. Through these stewardship programs, producers of PPP are responsible for financing some or all the costs to recycle their materials at the end of their useful lives. Stewardship organizations receive fees from businesses across Canada to meet their obligations under the extended producer responsibility (EPR) provincial regulations.

“Material characteristics—for example flexibility, size, bulkiness and abrasiveness—can have significant impact on costs in the recycling system,” says Michael Timpane, vice president of process optimization and material recovery at RRS. “This study will assist in redefining the calculation of a critical input to stewardship fees based on the impact that various material characteristics and changing material mixes cause in the recycling system.”

During this multiphased project, RRS says it will work closely with CSSA and engage with PPP program operators, supply chain partners and equipment manufacturers to develop a methodology for identifying recycling system cost impacts of PPP based on material characteristics and material mixes through research, field testing and cost modeling.

The MCD project, which was launched in October 2016, is guided by eight principles established by a CSSA working group with representatives from the following PPP stewardship organizations: Recycle BC, Multi-Material Stewardship Western, Multi-Material Stewardship Manitoba and Stewardship Ontario:

• Relativity counts. The methodology must produce results that inform stewards about the relative cost impacts of the materials they supply into the marketplace.
• All designated materials count. All designated materials should be considered when measuring cost impacts even when those materials are supplied and/or managed in small quantities because all materials are constituents of the recycling system.
• All material characteristics count. When differentiating the cost impacts of one material compared with another, all a material’s characteristics that can reasonably be measured should be measured because each characteristic can affect costs in different ways.
• All activities count. All activities necessary to prepare the material to be repurposed should be considered because all materials supplied into the market should be repurposed.
• Value counts. Commodity value attributed to a material must be consistent with the decisions applied when differentiating cost impacts.
• System design and operations count. The MCD methodology should be rooted in measurable recycling system activities, resource usage and cost drivers.
• Emerging trends count. The MCD methodology will consider evolving recycling technologies and practices to ensure the most current material management techniques inform cost impact measurements.
• The material mix counts. The composition within material categories may differ according to the scope of each program and needs to be considered because such differences may result in different impacts on cost.

In a news release from 2017 announcing the principles, CSSA says, “The primary objective of the MCD Project is to develop a methodology that can differentiate the cost to manage each material in the recycling system in a way that satisfies the eight guiding principles and that will work equally well for all four programs.”

CSSA has a video that explains how steward fees are calculated and introduces the MCD Project at https://youtu.be/_AKug9Sq1sk.