Adopt national plastics program, Varga says

By COLLIN GALLANT on March 19, 2021.

cgallant@medicinehatnews.com@CollinGallant

A Medicine Hat city councillor is renewing his support for a program to collect fees from large paper and plastic packaging companies to potentially cut local recycling fees.

Two years ago Brian Varga secured unanimous support from local council to push the province to enrol in a nationwide “extended producer liability” system.

That would charge an enviro fee on paper and plastic used in packaging to help pay for recycling programs and encourage companies to reduce packaging or make products more easily recyclable.

On Wednesday, Environment Minister Jason Nixon told a spring convention of rural municipal officials that public consultations will move forward on the issue to support processing in the province.

“It’s about time something was happening with it,” Varga told the News on Thursday. “Everywhere else in the country is on the system and we could bring in those funds to help pay for recycling it.”

Varga got involved in the issue as a member of the environment and sustainability committee of the Alberta Urban Municipalities. That lobby group petitioned the province in 2019 to join the system that is in place in nine other provinces. It argued the funds would help defray local costs of recycling programs born by municipalities and passed on to rate payers.

The City of Medicine Hat endorsed support two years ago.

This week Nixon said the fee is part of a larger plan to create a plastics policy in conjunction with the associate ministry of natural gas, which deals with plastics producers that use methane as feedstock.

“Furthering our recycling goals as a province is a win-win-win for the environment, local economies and municipalities, some of whom are sitting on backlogs of potentially recyclable materials,” he said, adding Alberta’s goal is to become a “world leader” in recycling.

Consultation with industry groups is on now and a public feedback period is open until the end of April. A survey is available on the ministry’s website.

Still to be determined, said Varga, is a system to distribute the funds.

A 2016 study done by the AUMA concludes that adopting the system could provide $63 million per year to Alberta’s cities to put toward recycling costs and potentially lower fees on rate payers.

Since the system is already widespread in Canada and consumer prices are largely set nationally, advocates argue Albertans are subject to built-in cost at the cash register without access to funding that could reduce local recycling costs.

Companies can lower costs by reducing the volume of waste they produce and making products, such as plastic, easier to recycle.

The sector currently employs 7,500 people and is worth $132 million each year to the province’s gross domestic product.

Medicine Hat expanded wide scale recycling efforts with a curbside pickup program in 2017 that added a total of about $3 to residential bills once a host of solid waste fees were adjusted.

The province estimates that 4.5 million tonnes of waste is produced each year in Alberta, or about 1,000 kilograms per person. Between 15 to 20 per cent of that is packaging and printed paper that could be diverted from landfills and be repurposed.

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