Advocacy & Policy

Ontario: Submissions

Stewardship Ontario
21 St. Clair Avenue East, Suite 503
Toronto, ON M4T 1L9
Via E-Mail: info@stewardshipontario.ca

On behalf of Retail Council of Canada (RCC) and our members operating across the province, we are pleased to provide comments on the preliminary fees for 2010 Blue Box and Phase 1 Municipal Hazardous or Special Waste (MHSW) materials, as presented by Stewardship Ontario for consultation at the September 10 information session.

The following represents the initial thoughts of retailers, which may be added to and/or refined as further discussion and consultation takes place.

Reusable Bag Reporting
At the information session, Stewardship Ontario (SO) presented a proposed administrative change to the 2010 Steward Rules for Blue Box reporting, stating there would be a "requirement to report textile carry-out bags designed to be reused and replace single-use carry-out bags." The PowerPoint presentation stated that while there would be no associated fee on reusable bags SO would like to gather data to "determine appropriate policy on potential calculation and payment of fees."

RCC believes that the intention of reusable bags are similar to any other durable product such as a jewellery box, CD case, etc., which are not considered packaging and are thus exempted from reporting. RCC recommends that SO treat reusable bags in the same way as other durable goods and further, to remove any reporting requirements for reusable bags from the 2010 Blue Box Steward Rules.

Market Share Fee Model for Pesticides and Fertilizers
While we are pleased that there is a fee schedule for most MHSW Phase 1 materials, we understand that due to extraordinary circumstances, the fertilizer and pesticide product categories are using a "measured return rate" model. RCC members recognize that this is not an ideal situation as retailers will not be able to effectively manage and budget their costs associated with such products until after the fact. Further, it puts retailers/brand-owners into the position of not being able to have the flexibility to choose to hide or show the fee visibly to the consumer as they will not know the fee in advance.

RCC recommends that once enough reasonable data has been collected, the fee schedule be amended to reflect fee rates for pesticides and fertilizers as soon as possible.

Battery Reporting
RCC members are concerned with the proposed requirement with having additional sub-categories (AIMn/AI, ZnC/Zn Air and Li Metal) added for battery reporting under the MHSW program.

The reporting requirement for batteries under the MHSW program is already extremely onerous for retailers, in particular for batteries within products. It takes affected retailers a significant amount of time to identify affected products and gather the necessary data to file their MHSW report. A considerable portion of this time is spent on identifying products that use a single cell battery and trying to classify them as lithium or alkaline. The administrative costs to do quarterly reporting for batteries contained within products far outweigh the cost.

RCC recommends that that there be a flat (ie. annual) fee for batteries contained within products. Estimates could be based on previous reporting and the stewards/remitters could report any necessary adjustments at year end. Furthermore, we do not support the proposal to have additional sub-categories within the battery category.

Other Issues
RCC and its members continue to be concerned about the issue of rounding. Fees are to three decimal places and many retailers' accounting and data management systems cannot be configured to three decimal places. RCC recommends that the fees be adjusted to two decimal places. If this is not possible, in the short-term, Stewardship Ontario should provide rounding guidelines to stewards.

Reporting and remitting, and making system changes were needed and possible, takes a significant amount of time and money. It is worth noting that come July 1, 2010, retailers' focus will shift to ensuring their systems are compliant with the switch to a Harmonized Sales Tax (HST) system in Ontario. Switching to HST will put a further strain on retailers' already limited resources. Stewardship Ontario should bear this in mind as they finalize any changes — especially changes in reporting requirements — to the Blue Box and MHSW Steward Rules.

Conclusion
Once again, thank you for the opportunity to provide comments on the preliminary fees for 2010 Blue Box and Phase 1 MHSW materials. We look forward to continuing to work actively with Stewardship Ontario and other stakeholders to minimize the environmental impacts associated with used or leftover consumer products. If you require any further information or clarification, please do not hesitate to contact us.

Sincerely,

Rachel Kagan
National Director, Environmental Affairs