The LCBO's Deposit Return Program

Ontario's liquor retailer, the LCBO, recently slapped a 10 to 20 cent deposit on containers it sells. To redeem the deposit we must take the containers (mostly glass bottles) back to an Ontario Beer Store, which recycles them. The LCBO states the following reasons for the program:

- it will free up space in Blue Boxes, giving municipalities room to expand their recycling programs
- bagging empties back will help recycle 80 million containers a year that currently don't get recycled

It seems a bit bizarre that we need an alternative to blue boxes so that we can put other stuff in blue boxes. Anyone who has a problem with the capacity of their blue box can get a second blue box... or a third.

The LCBO's deposit return program increases pollution by:

- forcing people to drive to a beer store to return bottles, instead of efficiently putting them in a blue box on the curb with their garbage.
- providing special "bag it" bags that are made of extra-heavy plastic for us to return our containers in.

The program doesn't answer the real issue that, due to the cost of glass recycling, only 30% of bottles that go into recycling programs are actually recycled.

The program increases pollution and doesn't help recycling. What it does do is fob off those who are asking the LCBO to provide a real solution - refillable bottles. It protects their business from environmentalists who question the waste of one-use glass bottles and it provides them with a nice chunk of change from all the deposits they get to pocket.

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Give Us the Option To Buy Refillable Glass Bottles

Seventy percent of glass bottles that are put in recycling bins are sent to the dump. Part of the reason is preventable (like people trying to recycle bottles that have metal or plastic on them) and part is not (like current recycling technology just not dealing well with glass).

What we need is the option to buy refillable bottles for wine, pop and beer. A wine company might find that it's a competitive advantage to offer the refillable option. Companies like the Pop Shoppe were very successful in selling crates of 750-ml returnable pop bottles from Pop Shoppe bottling centers. We don't have to force every bottler to provide refillable bottles - we just need the option.

In Ontario, grocery stores used to have automated bottle return centers, where you put your bottles on a conveyor belt and the machine gave you a store credit. We had refillable bottles then because there was an Ontario law that forced bottlers to provide a percentage of their product in refillable bottles. All that ended when the government got a pay-off from bottling companies to allow them to sell 100% of their product in disposable (mostly plastic) bottles.

The environment is supposedly the number one political issue for Canadians today. Do we just care about the environment in the political arena, or are we willing to do something about it ourselves? Recycling is great, of course, but in some respects is a false fix. A lot of pollution and energy is used in recycling, and the main benefit (arguably) is reducing municipal waste management costs. In terms of real environmental progress, we need to start creating less waste - less garbage and less recycling.

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We Don't Get It

Earlier this week the British government released a devastating analysis of the effects of global climate change. The report does not derive from the usual environmentalist perspective - Sir Nicholas Stern, former chief economist at the World Bank and current head of UK government Economic Services, wrote the report at the behest of the UK Chancellor of the Exchequer. (You can find the full report here.) His bottom line: climate change caused by soaring greenhouse gas emissions is going to:

- cost the world 7 trillion dollars
- displace 200 million people because of flood or drought
- make large areas of the planet uninhabitable
- hit developing countries first and hardest
- cause a worldwide drop in GDP of 5-20%
- cause an economic catastrophe greater than WWI, WWII and the Great Depression combined

Europe gets it. European countries have been leading the way for decades on alternative energy sources, better transit, urban planning for the carless, and on and on.

Canada and the US don't get it.

One small example of our disastrous public policy: It was reported today that the US has strong-armed international organizations into allowing US farmers to resume use of methyl bromide, a pesticide that is banned internationally because of its potent ozone-destroying effects.

Canada and the US are now both out of Kyoto. Our record is pitiful and our greenhouse gas emissions are soaring. Prime Minister Stephen Harper just cancelled a European summit because he feared his environmental record would be publicly criticized, even though British Prime Minister Tony Blair and German Chancellor Angela Merkel just reached out to the US and Canada on environmental issues in the most positive, friendly and diplomatic way possible. (The statement said things like, "there's a real opportunity to make progress" and "there are signs of hope here.")

Why don't we get it? I mean this as a personal question too. Why am I not outside right now carrying a placard to protest the Tory's "environmental inaction" legislation?

The number one reason has to be that we enjoy such low oil prices. Europe has paid over $2 a liter for gas for decades, and that changes everything. I keep saying this - all apologies to Joe Clark, who lost his prime ministership because he tried to institute an oil tax - but we must raise gas prices. This initiative has to come from the public. We can't expect another government to commit suicide by trying to do the right thing and institute a gas tax. We have to let them know that we want to pay a higher price at the pump.

Another reason is historical. Back in the 70s there was a huge movement to convince the public that nonrenewable resources were running out. Gaining popularity just when the oil cartel created a worldwide gas shortage, there was widespread panic at the belief that everything from oil to copper was going to be gone well before the end of the century. I still have my well-thumbed paperback copy of The Limits to Growth around somewhere. It didn't serve us well.

Also, we've been talking about this for so damn long and not getting anywhere. Oh, we've done lots of other good things. Canada has a brilliant recycling program that is reducing the cost of garbage disposal. But the average gas consumption of cars keeps going up in North America, consumer packaging keeps getting bigger, we keep buying bigger houses with bigger applicances, blah blah blah.

A big part of the problem is the enormous amount of misinformation we in North America receive through our media and the internet. It doesn't help to have conservative politicians say that climate change is bunk. I read a blog recently that argued that it doesn't matter what we in Canada do because of the enormous environmental disaster coming in China, where economic growth means more cars and industry, and where environmental regulations (according to the blog) are lax. In fact, environmental regulations in China are orders of magnitude better than ours. Their limits on car emissions are better even than California's. We can't pass the buck on this. It's us - North America - that's screwing the pooch. It's us - Canada and the US - that needs to get it together and start playing catch-up with the rest of the world.

See also: Earth Day

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