While the provincial government announced back in August that they’re planning to shift the cost of the Blue Box Program to producers by 2025, some local politicians think that isn’t enough to confront the issue of waste diversion.
At the council table on Monday night, Coun. Deb Doherty pulled an item on the consent agenda for further discussion.
The item was a resolution from the municipality of Mississippi Mills that outlined a request to the province to review and implement a deposit/return program for all single-use plastic, aluminum and metal drink containers and to review current producer requirements and look for extended producer responsibility for all packaging.
The suggestion came out of a recently released discussion paper, entitled "Reducing Litter and Waste in our Communities."
“I think we should put our support behind this resolution that has come from Mississippi Mills and other municipalities,” she said.
Doherty asked council to support an enhanced version of the resolution, due to three other provinces in Canada (British Columbia, Newfoundland and Nova Scotia) having already implemented the suggested measures to great success.
“They’ve had measurable results for waste reduction and diversion,” she said.
Coun. Kathy Jeffery said she needed to know the resolution wouldn’t contravene anything currently being worked on by the Association of Municipalities of Ontario (AMO) in regards to waste diversion.
“I thought these would have to be vetted through staff first before we proceeded on endorsements,” said Jeffery. “It’s not that I don’t support the intent; I think there’s other things that go with this.”
Doherty said AMO is involved in consideration of the discussion paper.
A motion put forward to defer the vote on the issue was defeated by a tie vote.
“In their most recent newsletter to municipalities, they suggested that municipalities better start getting serious about this because it will be coming forward and we must be diverting more of our waste,” said Doherty.
Saunderson reminded council that waste management is a County of Simcoe responsibility.
“We have some of the highest diversion rates in the province,” he said. “I guess what’s new to the mix is looking at going back to the deposit/return program, and the province is the only one that can implement that.”
Council voted to support the motion put forward by Mississippi Mills calling on the province to implement the deposit/return program and that they review current producer requirements and look for extended producer responsibilities.