In a previous post we mentioned the Ontario Eco Fee, a cash grab run by Stewardship Ontario to fund the proper recycling of various household hazardous waste products. The high concept was that retailers would ding the consumer a fee for 22 categories of consumer products in addition to the retail price. Again, the high concept was that fee would be passed onto Stewardship Ontario to fund the proper, sustainable recycling of those various products.
As an example, a new home fire extinguisher would carry an Ontario Eco Fee of $6.66 above the retail price of $89.99 for a 10 pound Kidde ABC rechargeable, like the kind you might have in a basement workshop. Then the Harmonized Sales Tax would glom its mitts into the deal topping the price out at $109.21.
Conceptually, the retailer would forward $6.66 to Stewardship Ontario and they would use the money to fund a program that recycles old fire extinguishers. Old fire extinguishers sometimes contain nasty stuff like Carbon Tetrachloride or Halon, neither of which are particularly good for the environment and should be disposed of properly. Agreed and no issue there. After properly emptying the extinguisher, the steel container can be recycled as scrap and melted down to make a blade for a shovel, or strings for a zither. Steel is steel.
Zinging the purchaser of a new fire extinguisher a bit to pay for a program to do it, sucks. Then again, we can’t fund everything out of general tax revenue, either federal or provincial, so it still sucks, but at least it is a step in the right direction. Again, at the high concept level, it’s at least an OK idea.
The final straw was Canadian Tire (Like Pep Boys in the US, but cross-bred with a Home Depot and a big hardware store) said yesterday it would not charge any of the Ontario Eco Fees as the program is utterly pooched beyond all redemption.
Today, the Ontario Minister of the Environment, John Gerretsen cancelled the Ontario Eco Fee because the whole program was so messed up as to be incomprehensible to mere mortals and applied so unfairly as to make people squirm with ugliness at the cash register. Some places charged it, some charged it incorrectly, others ate the fees, while even more stores just threw their hands up and took mighty levels of abuse from customers as of July 1st, when the expanded fees came into effect.
The real reason the Ontario Eco Fee took a flaming-turd nosedive was the inability of Stewardship Ontario to actually communicate what the fees were for and how they were to be applied. They skipped that little step of letting us consumers understand why and showing us what the money was going for before they stuck the fees to us.
If you want to see who is actually responsible for Stewardship Ontario, here’s the link. You’ll notice that the links for most of the senior management do not work. Only the CEO, Gemma Zecchini lists her previous gigs, mostly working for the soft drink industry. It doesn’t make her a bad person and we don’t doubt her sincerity, but the execution this time, truly did fail famously.
Again, back to high concept, the idea is sound: We have to divert more hazardous materials from being dumped into the general landfill sites around the province, separating out the streams of ‘garbage’ into things that can be composted, things that can be recycled and things that should only go into secure, proper and controlled haz mat facilities.
The various governments can’t/won’t pay for it, so industry, instead of having legislation inserted without the benefit of lubrication, came up with Stewardship Ontario to take on some of the responsibilities. Imperfect, yes, right now, it isn’t quite working the way it was supposed to in the PowerPoint presentation.
So here’s a suggestion: Dismiss the consultants who came up with the communication plan for Stewardship Ontario and start over. In 25 words or less, explain to me, in simple language, why I have to pay a little bit more for some things and what you’re doing and going to do with the money.
Show me those fees in action, diverting 88,000 old fire extinguishers from landfills for instance.
Tell me the story of the company in Mississauga that takes a combination of recycled newspapers and biomass to make steam to generate electricity.
Show me the company in Ontario that takes old rubber tires and turns them into something new, different or unusual.
Show me the company that takes PET soft drink bottles, remelts the PET then weaves carpet underpad out of the fibers. (We know about that one, because the underpad under our basement carpet is exactly that: Remelted and woven PET bottles.)
In other words, make a case to the average Ontario jamoke that what you’re doing is good and will help us today, next month, next year and the next generation. We’re reasonable people, we might grumble a bit, but we’ll go along with the Ontario Eco Fee.
If you can’t do that, then Stewardship Ontario is a sham and a con.
RoadDave 