By Pepper Parr
June 2nd, 2024
BURLINGTON, ON
There isn’t a day when we don’t hear or read something about the environment. From a world perspective it is the most important issue on the table.
Climate change leads the list of issues and how we handle waste is probably the next on the list.
Climate change is going to take place when we, as individuals, change the way we do things. Don’t let the car engine idle in cold weather and move to an electric vehicle.
Plastic waste is creating huge problems that we don’t have a handle on yet.
How we manage waste and the level of recycling is also very high on the list.
A poll done by a respected reliable public polling organization claims that 81% of people in Ontario want to be able to re-cycle–what – that number is up from 76% a year ago.
Environmental Defence, a not for profit organization that advocates on environmental issues said Ontarians want a deposit-return system for non-alcoholic beverage containers. The poll, conducted by Abacus Data, shows overwhelming public support for a better system to manage empties for drinks like pop, water and juice in the province.
The public has made its wishes known – the province hasn’t found a way to respond.
The recent announcement on plans to permit the sale of beer 24’s in convenience stores puts a different spin on how people will return their empty bottles.
That decision to sell beer at convenience stores will mean less beer being bought at the Beer stores which is expected to eventually mean fewer Beer Stores – the one place that people took their empties. If there are going to be fewer Beer Store location – well you can see the problem.
Environmental Defence has been on this story for years.
Environmental Defence said: “We appear to be at a point where more beer will be sold with fewer locations to return empty bottles. There is a solution that has to be made at the provincial level.
Karen Wirsig, Plastics Program Manager with Environmental Defence
According to Karen Wirsig, Plastics Program Manager with Environmental Defence, “the beverage industry is poised to introduce a pop bottle “tax” in Ontario to handle empties from non-alcoholic beverages. Does that mean we’re getting a new-and-improved program that will boost collection, refill and recycling while cutting litter? The answer – so far – is no.
“The beverage industry appears to want to keep the same ineffective system that we have today – recycling bins – even though we have proven year after year that deposit-return systems work.”
People will return the empties – they just need a place to take them to.
She adds: “People in Ontario are used to returning beer, wine and liquor bottles. In 2021, we took back 1.3 billion alcohol containers, including more than 340 million refillable beer bottles – a whopping 98 per cent of all the refillable beer bottles sold that year.
Changing the proven success of a deposit-return system makes the system we currently rely on for pop, water, juice, milk and iced tea all the more outrageous. History has taught us that Ontario’s curbside Blue Box program, with complementary recycling bins in parks and along sidewalks, is not as good as deposit-return for ensuring collection, reuse and recycling.
We know what the problem is – and we know what the possible solutions are – getting the government and the vested interest to listen is where the challenge lays.
More on that tomorrow.
Per the announcement the Beer people will be the beer distributors for the province and will continue to take on the recycling until 2031. So plenty of time to iron out any wrinkles. This is not to say this is the best way to deal with the issue that would have been dealt with later than sooner.
Not sure that selling beer in convenience stores creates recycling problems?
People already buy beer and already have empties, and those empties get returned to the beer store for the deposit fee refund. Same as all the other empty wine bottles and whisky flasks.
Or they go into the blue box.
Editor’s note: The sale of beer in conveniences stores is expected to result in the closing of some Beer Stores which will mean fewer places to return empties. Also, the Blue Box system apparently doesn’t result in beer bottles being recycled. More to come on this story
I thought most people (okay, everybody I know) put their bottles and cans in their blue box. I always thought they got recycled if in the blue box, no? And felt the bottle charge to be outdated and now a money grab.
I haven’t seen any “proof” that we need a deposit system. People are much better now with using their blue box (slow uptake when it was introduced many moons ago) and everybody I know also drops off used batteries for proper disposal.
If there is money to be made “They will come”
For years on our street people with a grocery cart scour our Blue Box for all types of containers.Another person in a nice car goes only for the alcohol containers.