Administration with the Municipality of Chatham-Kent have a beef with proposed amendments to the Blue Box program and the act that regulates it and they plan to let the province know about it.
Staff will be asking council Monday night at its meeting to allow them to submit comments to the Ministry of Environment to let them know their displeasure with the proposed amendment regarding businesses.
The Resource Recovery and Circular Economy Act (RRCEA) was passed in 2016 to enhance Ontario’s waste management network by increasing diversion and reducing landfill disposal.
The municipality opted out of collecting recycling at the curb in January 2024 to save money and Waste Connections of Canada (WCC) took over the residential blue box collection. However, industrial, commercial, and institutional (ICI) sources were left to fend for themselves.
"Municipalities have been advocating for the inclusion of ICI as eligible sources at every opportunity for the past two years, arguing that it is the only practical solution to control the system’s costs while maximizing blue box material recovery rates," wrote staff in its report to council. "Institutions and small businesses are the most impacted since they are likely unable to bear the financial burden of a separate collection and processing system."
The province also wants to delay the enforcement of the recovery targets by five years to 2031 instead of 2026; remove the requirement to provide collection service to multi-residential buildings, schools, and long-term care and retirement homes that were not serviced by the municipality prior to January 1, 2024; and remove the requirement to provide public space collection and beverage container collection away from the curb.
Administration said the proposed amendments are seen as tools that prioritize profit of the private sector at the expense of environmental sustainability, service equity, and financial impacts to municipal governments.
"The proposed amendments to the regulations do not only fall short of municipal advocacy objectives, but also retract the blue box program several steps backwards," the municipality said. "Municipalities express the concern that the province has yielded to pressure from the private sector without giving sufficient consideration to municipal input."
Staff predicts taxpayers will end up paying for failures to the system, adding that sources previously recycled that are deemed ineligible under the regulation will likely end up in the landfill and that will increase the municipal cost to collect and dispose of garbage.