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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