Dear Editor
In a recent letter to the editor, ("Scrap costly, confusing new recycling tax" Regional Optimist Oct. 23) the Canadian Federation of Independent Business is taking the provincial government to task for implementing a program that would shift up to 75 per cent of the cost of recycling paper and packaging from municipalities to businesses.
In 2013, the province approved the Household Packaging and Paper Stewardship Program Regulations, which obligate businesses who sell paper or packaging made from paper, plastics, glass or metals to Saskatchewan residents to take some responsibility for the cost of handling these materials at end-of-life.
These regulations are similar to those obligating companies who sell used oil materials, scrap tires, electronics and paint to pay for the end-of-life of their products. Saskatchewan now has programs that collect and recycle all these products, at no cost to taxpayers.
To be clear, this program has nothing to do with how much businesses recycle. We applaud businesses who responsibly handle their discards, while noting waste from non-residential sources still makes up two-thirds of what goes into municipal landfills. This program is about what goes out the front door, not the back. It's about businesses taking responsibility for the packaging they put into the marketplace.
The regulations obligate businesses, called 'stewards,' to create a program that can calculate how much of these materials are recycled and to pay 75 per cent of the net costs. Businesses have the option of creating a program all on their own, or of joining with other businesses to produce a program. The regulations set out the criteria under which a program can be approved.
Any business, or group of businesses - the CFIB, for example - is free to submit a plan for approval. So far, only one group of businesses, those that have joined together to create Multi-Material Stewardship Western, has submitted a program plan. Their plan was approved in December 2013. MMSW has a lot of the big players - companies like Unilever, Federated Co-op, Loblaw, Walmart, Coca-Cola, Procter & Gamble and Tim Hortons.
These folks have experience with similar programs in other provinces and they stepped up to meet their regulatory obligations here in Saskatchewan. So, right now, they're the only game in town. Businesses who sell the obligated products and packaging are obligated to join MMSW - at least until they, or another group, submit a program plan and it is approved.
MMSW has provisions for smaller businesses in their plan, completely exempting those who annually sell less than one tonne of packaging or who have less than $750,000 in revenues. They also have a simplified participation process for the next-smallest businesses.
The regulations don't tell businesses how to split up the program costs between themselves - only that they have to describe their method of calculation in the program plan. So anyone who doesn't like the way the costs are calculated needs to take it up with MMSW, not with the government. Or, again, put together their own plan and get it approved.
The Household Packaging and Paper Stewardship Regulations are all about who pays. For nearly two decades, municipalities and environmental groups have been asking the government for a program that would shift the costs from taxpayers to producers/consumers.
Yes, most of us are both taxpayers and consumers, but here's the difference. As a consumer, we have some choice. We can choose whether or not to buy something and often we can choose what type of package to buy it in. When we toss the package, either in the recycling or the garbage, the municipality, i.e., taxpayers cover the cost of handling that container. So, even if we chose not to buy something, as taxpayers, we are on the hook for everyone else's buying decisions. In addition, municipalities, i.e., taxpayers are paying for - read "subsidizing" - the decisions of businesses who decide what to sell and what type of package to sell it in.
These regulations are a step toward true cost accounting and allocating costs where they belong.
Joanne Fedyk
Executive Director
Saskatchewan Waste Reduction Council
