We were so close to getting a program Ontarians and the environment deserve: an expanded deposit-return program for all beverage containers, including water, pop and juice. Then, out of the blue, Premier Ford pulled the plug, just after Canada Day weekend, leaving beverage companies dumbfounded and big grocery retailers delighted.
Deposit return is the program where consumers return their empty beverage containers for a refund of the deposit they paid when they bought the beverage. These programs regularly collect, and recycle or refill upwards of 80 per cent of beverage containers. Ontario already has such a program for alcoholic beverages. Eight out of 10 provinces already have it for non-alcoholic beverages. But not Ontario.
Ontario relies on the less effective blue box collection system, which collects and recycles less than half of all beverage containers sold in the province. That’s why a whopping 1.7 billion plastic drink containers end up in landfills, incinerators or the natural environment every year.
Apparently billions of bottles scattered along roadsides and piling-up in parks, lakes, and rivers is a-ok with Premier Ford.
The Ontario Premier is defying common sense and popular opinion
What Premier Ford did in early July not only defies common sense, it also goes against what people in Ontario want and what the beverage producers have been working toward. And those beverage companies are key, since provincial rules mean they are now the ones responsible for collecting and recycling or refilling their empty containers.
For all the years that Environmental Defence has been advocating for expanded deposit return, it was only in the last year that beverage producers have come on side in Ontario. They recognize that it’s the right thing to do, and the only way they will meet the all-important targets that have been set in provincial regulation for collection and management of their empties.
The Canadian Beverage Association even went as far as to commission a credible report on the most effective and economical ways to expand deposit return in Ontario to include the non-alcoholic beverages they sell. That report found that the best way is to build on the existing system for beer and other alcoholic beverages, using the Beer Store return system and adding other retail stores that sell beverages, with the option of adding special return depots.
This is what Ontarians want as well. Polling we commissioned in the spring confirmed that more than 80 per cent of people in this province want expanded deposit return—and the majority want the option of returning their empties to the stores where they buy beverages. Common sense.
But there’s the rub.
Retail giants delighted with Premier Ford’s cancellation of deposit return
A couple of major retailer organizations cried foul about having to play a role in taking back empties, and it appears the Premier preferred to make a few profitable businesses happy instead of doing the right thing. Sadly, this has become a pattern in Ontario.
So as people across Ontario are taking to the lakes and parks this summer, they are still needlessly wading past littered beverage containers with no relief in sight. The Premier dropped the ball to give major retailers what they wanted, and he did so at the expense of the environment.
Let’s not give retailers the last word on this. Let Premier Ford know you want him to reverse course and make sure deposit return is expanded to all beverage containers in Ontario.
