Increasing Red Tape from Ontario Government’s Regulatory Approach to Recycling
October 6, 2021, Ottawa, ONTARIO: The Ontario Government’s Hazardous and Specialty Products (HSP) Regulation continues to increase manufacturing costs in the Province with higher consumer eco fees for many consumer products in the non-packaging recycling sector. Those eco fees are already higher than other jurisdictions in Canada. There is no evidence to support such increasing costs will lead to better waste recovery outcomes. These eco fees are arbitrarily set by a ‘delegated Authority’ without due regard for economy and efficiency for those who are obligated to deliver these recycling programs, Ontario manufacturers. The Government’s new regulatory fees are passed on to Ontario consumers at a time when inflation is already at a 20-year high, while manufacturers continue to experience raw material increases of 20 to 80 percent and attempting to hire back their full workforce to pre-pandemic levels.
The paint and coatings recycling program, for example, has been recognized as one of the most successful in Ontario, consistently meeting and exceeding annual recycling targets. The program recovers enough leftover paint in Ontario annually to paint 230,000 average-sized homes. However, the new regulations just announced by the Ontario Government has paint recycling regulatory costs alone skyrocketing by 400% annually. That’s only one program. Increases are being experienced for all other recycled products without any forecasted improvements in waste recycling for those products.
Much of the increasing Government regulatory costs for recycling in Ontario are driven by high IT costs for a registry system, which duplicates information already provided by manufacturers via their program operators as per existing legislation. It’s purely red tape, nothing else. These program operators already run efficient waste recycling programs and fulfill the manufacturers’ legislated obligations in Ontario for waste recycling. Oversight under the delegated Authority for waste recovery in Ontario, the Resource Productivity and Recovery Authority (RPRA), has increased from 10 to 50 staff in less than four years. New business plans reveal that staffing will approach close to 100 or more in 2023. At the same time, annual operating costs rose 300% and they estimate the current budget is expected to almost double to more than $20 million in 2023. Increases in management salaries for 2020 averaged 6%, contrasted with just 1% for the capped salary increases of public servants. It’s time for waste recycling programs to be put back under the Environmental Protection Act once and for all. Manufacturers and consumers need a break. The Ontario government needs to have a realistic and effective waste policy approach.
Other provinces and jurisdictions around the world run similar waste recycling programs effectively under their respective Environmental Protection Acts. All are doing so at much lower costs for manufacturers and consumers. These jurisdictions see no need to set up an expensive delegated Authority to run such programs duplicating what is already legislated with no prospect of better outcomes. In contrast, government officials in other jurisdictions, including in Canada, already work collaboratively with the regulated community at very reasonable costs, while achieving similar or better waste recovery outcomes than Ontario. Consumer eco fees and regulatory costs are also lower in those jurisdictions. It’s unclear why Ontario created a Delegated Authority to do the Government’s work when the Government can do it better and already run efficient recycling programs under the EPA. In the end, the Government will be held responsible for the growing costs with nothing to show for in terms of better recycling outcomes. The current Ontario Government must understand such matters as they shut down similar delegated Authorities in Ontario due to lack of economy and efficiency over the past three years.
Industry fully supports product stewardship and waste recovery as it has clearly proven over the past 12 years in Ontario under existing legislation. However, 400% increases in regulatory costs and higher eco fees for Ontario consumers on many products they buy, without a forecast for increased waste recovery, was not expected from this Ontario Government, nor was such massive red tape. This growing red tape with increasing business and consumer costs seems to have no end.