Beverage Container Reuse And Recycling In Canada
EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
This report provides an update on the techniques Canada's ten provinces
and two territories use to reduce beverage container waste. With
one significant exception (Ontario), Canadian provinces exhibit a
consistent preference for requiring producers to take full responsibility
for beverage container waste a concept known as "Extended Producer
Responsibility" (EPR).
Extended Producer Responsibility is defined as a pollution prevention
policy focusing on "product systems" rather than "production facilities." Thus,
the responsibility for a product is broadened beyond the emissions
and effluents generated by the extraction or manufacturing processes
to the management of the product once it is discarded.
EPR identifies the primary responsibility for waste generated during
a product's production and ultimate disposal as residing with the
producer. Making producers pay for their waste and pollution provides
them incentive to incorporate more environmental consideration in
their product design and materials choice. Internalizing the 'external'
costs of products and their packaging shifts the costs of managing
post-consumer waste from governments and taxpayers to producers and
consumers.
The forms of beverage container extended producer responsibility
adopted in Canada are listed in Table 1.
In eight provinces the economic instrument used to encourage producer
responsibility for soft drinks is deposit-return. The result is a
reduction in beverage container waste through high rates of recovery
and recycling of beverage cans and bottles.
In all ten provinces beer containers are also collected via deposit-return
systems because of either government mandate or industry self-regulation.
Refundable deposits are also a necessary component for the environmentally
superior refillable container system. Refillables dominate the beer
market at approximately 80% of the single serving share and an even
higher percentage of the beer share, including draft. Milk containers
are not part of any user pay system anywhere in Canada.
The Canadian preference for 'extended producer responsibility'
is a relatively recent occurrence. Over the six years between 1992
and 1998, seven of Canada's ten provinces have implemented or substantially
strengthened regulations ensuring that beverage producers and their
consumers increasingly bear the costs of beverage container waste.
Every system change in the 1990s involved increased producer responsibility.
As recently as October 1998, Quebec has announced its intention to
significantly expand its already strong commitment to the "producer
pays" principle. It will require producers to take responsibility
for funding the curbside recycling system. Producers will bear the
full costs, net of the avoided municipal landfill cost in the absence
of curbside recycling.
More
| 
