A provincial agency is recommending Ontario scrap the $5 per tire "disposal" fee charged to drivers when they get rid of their old tires, and replace it with a levy charged to manufacturers and importers that they could pass on to consumers.
The fees paid by the tire producers would be used to fund the Ontario Tire Stewardship, an industry-administered plan to track, collect, store, transport, process and market scrap tires with a goal of having 95 per cent of them recycled in the province.
Currently, about half of the 12 million used tires generated in Ontario each year are sent to the United States or Quebec to be incinerated.
Waste Diversion Ontario, which includes representatives of industry as well as local governments and the public, predicts that number will grow to 15 million used tires annually by 2014, and has developed a new strategy to deal with the problem.
"The entire tire management system is driven by the lowest-cost option," executive director Glenda Gies said in an interview.
"We're going to create the payment system that rewards the folks who are registered as legitimate service providers, and will pay them when they do the right thing, which is deliver the tires to a processor in Ontario."
Under Ontario's current system, residents and businesses pay retailers a fee that averages $5 a tire to manage the used tires that are removed.
Each time tires move from one party to the next - from the retailer to waste management companies to the haulers to the recyclers or landfill operators - costs are charged for each service.
The "inherent flaw" in the system is that choices made by each player are based on lowest costs, not the environment, so Ontario tires end up in kilns in Quebec or the U.S. that burn them for fuel, leaving the province's processors short of used tires to be turned into other products, Gies said.
"We'd like to set up a system where those tires are actually staying in Ontario and are feeding Ontario processors and manufacturers," she said.
"By setting up a system in which Ontario Tire Stewardship would be responsible for tracking all of the tires and for providing incentives to build Ontario's processing and manufacturing capacity, we're hoping to build some green industry in Ontario."
The New Democrats said the Liberal government has a weak record of meeting its waste diversion goals, but welcomed the plan to have the industry pay fees and administer the used tire program in Ontario.
"In practical terms, if industry isn't paying for it, they won't care about how they design the tire or whether it's set up to be more easily recycled or less easily recycled," said NDP environment critic Peter Tabuns.
"To promote recycling, they should have to pay the fee."
There are an estimated 2.3 million scrap tires in 95 stockpiles across Ontario, including six sites with more than 100,000 tires each, and Waste Diversion Ontario wants to eliminate all of them if possible by 2012.
"Sometimes putting them in a field is just an easier, cheaper option than delivering them to the appropriate processor," Gies said.
"By having a system where (the tire industry) would be responsible for paying the haulers and paying the processors, we're hoping that we're going to be able to eliminate that financial incentive to stockpile."
Waste Diversion Ontario wants each site to have its own abatement plan with an eye to cleaning up and sorting tires for recycling and processing into other products, or as a last resort, using them for what the government calls "tire-derived fuel."
The plans to deal with the tire dumps would be worked out with the Environment Ministry and local municipalities.
The new fees that will be charged to manufacturers and importers could be added to the wholesale or retail price, or be passed along as a separate visible fee added to the price of a tire.
Currently, millions of tires in Ontario each year are turned into crumbs for rubberized asphalt, become alternatives to aggregate and sand for civil engineering projects, or are made into fabricated products such as hoses used in car engines.
Another 750,000 tires end up in Ontario landfills each year. Waste Diversion Ontario suspects 800,000 more are not accounted for because they are being dumped illegally.
The public has until Feb. 27, 2009, to comment on the group's plan to recover and recycle used tires, and clear out the stockpiles of millions of old tires scattered across the province.
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A national approach for dealing with Australia's e-waste is closer to being realised, with the public invited to comment on proposed strategies.
New Zealanders strongly support a levy on solid waste but they are divided on who should receive the money, according to survey results released by the Product Stewardship Foundation today.
The Product Stewardship Foundation (PSF) with New Zealand Business Council for Sustainable Development undertook a ShapeNZ survey of New Zealanders last week on Waste Levies and Product Stewardship. The survey had 2791 respondents with a margin of error of +/- 1.9%.
The Ministry for the Environment as released its new Guide to Product Stewardship for Non-priority Products in the Waste Minimisation Act 2008
The purpose of this document is to provide:
The intended audiences for this document are:
Guide to Product Stewardship for Non Priority Products
Business leaders, community groups and local government step up to the Government’s challenge to develop a new packaging product stewardship scheme for New Zealand
The truck has been developed to collect some of the estimated 10 million plastic agrichemical containers disposed every year in New Zealand.
Efforts to establish a recycling scheme for unwanted computer equipment have hit a stumbling block, with "two or three" multinational computer manufacturers refusing to support a system under which they would pay a levy on imported computers.
The Ministry for the Environment has released the Waste Minimisation in New Zealand Discussion paper
Click here to read the document
Click here to visit the MFE website
New Zealand Herald
MP claims full support for levy on landfill waste
5:00AM Tuesday April 08, 2008
Green MP Nandor Tanczos says he has been given unanimous support from a select committee for his Waste Minimisation Bill that includes a $10-a-tonne levy on waste going to landfills.
Media Release 27th May 2008
Hon Trevor Mallard Minister of Environment
15 April 2008 Speech Notes
Environment Minster Trevor Mallard's speech to the New Zealand Packaging Accord One Day Seminar, The Conference Centre, AUT Tech Park.
Businesses need to focus on how to make the most of new opportunities driven by the growing shortage of local and world natural resources. The newly elected chair of the New Zealand Business Council for Sustainable Development, Bob Field, also chair of Toyota NZ Limited, says the planet’s resources are being stretched as never before by a growing population and higher standards of living.
The Ministry for the Environment have released the criteria for the Waste Minimisation Fund
The purpose of the Waste Minimisation Fund is to boost New Zealand’s performance in waste minimisation. There is considerable scope to reduce waste and increase the recovery of useful resources from waste. Lifting our performance in recovering economic value from waste also provides environmental, social and cultural benefits and reduces the risks of harm from waste.
This will require investment in infrastructure and systems for waste minimisation and developing educational and promotional capacity. The purpose of the fund is to provide some of the funding to ensure that this occurs.
The challenge for business Organisations that understand that consumers are regarding them through a new green lens and respond to that shift will gain competitive advantage.
Read this interesting article from June 09 Managment magazine.
A proposed bill in the California State Assembly would require producers of certain products and packaging to change the materials they use and develop better ways to deal with the products when they're disposed of.
New Zealanders are almost evenly split over paying 10c an item extra at shops to recycle packaging.
New waste minimisation law allows for compulsory recycling schemes. Implementing one for containers is estimated to cost at least 10 cents per item, according to packaging industry research.
A new nationwide ShapeNZ survey of nearly 2,397 people shows the country is split 36% for to 34% against any new per-item tax. Some 23% are neutral and 8% are not sure.
Thursday, 19 June 2008, Press Release: New Zealand Government
New waste legislation will offer economic incentives and rewards to businesses and councils who do their bit for waste reduction
Demand for recycled goods is down, causing a billion dollar industry to lose much of its steam. But another byproduct of the recycling industry's downturn is the creation of new opportunities.
PANASONIC BACKS PSA'S PLEA FOR TV RECYCLING
By Matthew Henry
SYDNEY: Panasonic today ramped up pressure on the Rudd government to implement a national recycling scheme for old TVs, calling for an industry-funded scheme to be operational within three to four years.
Panasonic’s pledge to lobby for the scheme follows a recent letter by Product Stewardship Australia on behalf of leading TV brands expressing frustration and disappointment at environment minister Peter Garrett’s inaction on the proposed scheme.
In September 2007, the government released a cabinet paper of proposed legislation for a national waste levy, product stewardship, reporting requirements on waste data and a consolidation of waste legislation in a new bill.
A US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) report on opportunities to cut greenhouse gas (ghg) emissions through improved management of materials and land notes that 37% of the country's total ghg emissions come from the provision and use of goods within the USA.
OTTAWA — The federal government is contemplating a $35-million recycling program to keep its obsolete and unwanted computers and other gear out of the country's landfills, say newly released documents.
A draft analysis by the Public Works Department says a federal scheme is needed because some provinces lack programs to allow Ottawa to safely dispose of its used computers, fax machines and cellular phones.
"A federal program is still necessary over the next five years to ensure the end of life management of federal government IT equipment as . . . there is no guarantee as to when all provinces and the territories will have take-back programs in place," says the analysis, drafted last September.
A new advisory board has been appointed to provide advice to the Environment Minister on issues relating to waste minimisation, Environment Minister Trevor Mallard said today.
Television manufacturers have proposed a levy of about $30 on imported televisions sets to pay for the cost of recycling, and an industry agreement on how to pay for the environmentally-safe disposal of unwanted computers looks within reach.
Manufacturing companies are increasing differentiating themselves by using Life Cycle Management as a point of competitive advantage in international markets. By learning how to manage the life cycle of products more effectively, companies can realise market opportunities and simultaneously improve environmental performance.
To read more about Life Cycle Management please click here
The Life Cycle Management project is a five year programe that aims to build LCM capability among New Zealand manufacturing companies
Read more about the project, who is involved and what its aims are. lcm_leaflet_2 1.12 Mb
