ecent calls in the media for the Environmental Handling Fee (EHF) on tires to be reduced because some tires are being recycled outside the province show a lack of understanding of the purpose of those fees and of Extended Producer Responsibility programs in general.
Let’s start with program basics first. Extended Producer Responsibility (EPR) programs are based on the premise that those who produce a product ought to take responsibility for that product at the end of its life. Before EPR programs, most things ended up in municipal landfills, which are paid for by municipal taxes. Municipal taxpayers (you and me) have no say in how products are designed or what packages are chosen, but we still had to pay for them to be buried (forever) in our communities. Also, if I choose to buy lots of the crappiest products with the shortest lives and throw them in the garbage, you, my fellow taxpayer, would be forced to share in the costs of dealing with my bad choices.
Enter EPR programs that require the companies who design the products and choose the packaging be the ones to handle and pay for end-of-life. EPR programs exist across Canada and throughout the world. Saskatchewan has EPR programs for used oil materials, leftover paint, scrap tires, end-of-life electronics, residential paper and packaging, agricultural grain bags and household hazardous materials. For all these products, the companies who make the products and the people who buy them foot the bill to divert them from landfill.
EPR programs are required by provincial regulations to make sure people who buy the product have a convenient place to take it at end of life, i.e., the programs need to establish a province-wide collection system. What these look like here depends on the product. People who get their oil changed can leave it at the oil change place to be picked up; those who change their own oil can take it to an EcoCentre or a participating retailer. Those with end-of-life electronics can drop them off at a SARCAN depot or another drop-off site. Scrap tires can be left with the tire dealer or brought from home to participating tire dealers. There’s a network of depots for ag grain bags.
Once the materials are collected, they’re gathered, possibly baled, and shipped to recyclers or other appropriate end uses. The programs keep track of what happens until the materials reach their final destination and they report the results back to the province and the public.
EPR programs are funded by Environmental Handling Fees (EHFs), either paid at the point of sale by the consumer or farther back in the supply chain by the retailer/wholesaler/manufacturer. EHFs are used to fund the whole system – education, collection, processing, recycling, administration — not just recyclers. In fact, not all EPR programs pay fees to recyclers – in cases where decent markets for recycling exist, there is no need to subsidize recyclers.
So, EPR programs make sure that industry handles its products responsibly at the end of their lives. Part of the reason to involve industry is to encourage them to design better products and to make better packaging choices. Another is to safeguard the environment and conserve resources. A third is to take the burden for dealing with these products away from municipalities.
If EHFs do end up providing economic benefits to the province, that’s a bonus. Using them to keep local businesses viable is a subversion of their purpose and of the purpose of EPR programs in general.
