Bad policy, junk recycling

It’s always a shame to shatter the illusions of environmentally conscious citizens, especially those who believe that every last remnant of computers and televisions recycled under Ontario’s government-mandated electronics program finds a happy ending. Sorry, but it’s just not so.

Ontarians pay hefty eco fees for recycling — amounting to $83.6 million in 2012 — under the four-year-old Ontario Electronic Stewardship program. Most don’t mind because the OES promises to manage our old laptops, printers and other gadgets in a “responsible” way. As its website says, “Show the Planet You Care.”

But now it turns out that the program is riddled with loopholes and falls far short of its ambitious promises. Some recyclers operating under the Ontario program are sending their leftover materials (such as plastics laden with cancer-causing chemicals) to shoddy processors, including at least two in southern China where materials are “recycled” using third-world standards.

The end result is that well-intentioned Ontario consumers are paying millions for a system that allows waste to be dumped in ways that harm the environment and the workers who dispose of it.

The Chinese examples come from Cindy Coutts, president of Sims Recycling Solutions, a multinational firm with facilities in Peel Region. Coutts told the Star’s editorial board that she has personally seen materials from OES-related companies in two separate Chinese operations with “egregious” health conditions and environmental practices.

Coutts visited one of those facilities twice in the past two years. She says the smoke from melted plastic floated unfiltered into the air and staff sat on open shredders, pushing material into cutting blades. Its waste diversion tactics, to manage massive stockpiles of plastics, were reminiscent of the pre-industrial age.

As Coutts says, “There were bulldozers pushing the plastics over a bank into a river.” That’s not exactly the feel-good recycling that Ontario consumers imagine when they fork over $27.60 in eco fees on a large-screen television or $12.25 for a computer monitor.

At a second unrelated facility, Coutts says she saw workers sniffing fumes from burning pieces of plastic. It is the workers’ job to determine the plastic’s chemistry by smelling the smoke, she says. If a piece doesn’t catch fire, the worker tosses it in the flame-retardant pile. If it burns, the worker tries to detect a certain smell from the smoke and tosses it in the appropriate pile. The workers inhale carcinogenic smoke all day.

Earlier this month, Coutts reported her findings to the Ontario government and Waste Diversion Ontario, the relatively toothless oversight body for provincial recycling. She hasn’t heard back.

Most processors are afraid to publicly speak against the OES; as their only Ontario customer, it controls the materials each company gets. But three others told us that they, too, have complained about the use of unapproved “downstream” recyclers — a direct contravention of the program’s rules. They are angry because unethical recyclers flout environmental standards and reap greater profits than those who pay more to follow the rules.

Daniel D’Alfonso, general manager of ADL Process Inc. in westend Toronto, wants OES to publish online the names of companies caught sending Ontario recyclables to unapproved facilities. He’s right. Transparency is a great motivator.

So far, no one knows how many tonnes of waste have been improperly recycled. But international oversight is clearly a problem in the electronics recycling program that former environment minister John Gerretsen once called a “significant milestone on our path to a zero waste future.”

Of course, no one from the Ontario Electronics Stewardship program will admit to these failings — at least not publicly. After all, the program looks fine on paper.

Jonathan Spencer, the executive director, said he has no knowledge of Coutts’ “unsubstantiated” observations in China. Spencer recently said he told recyclers who use unapproved downstream processors to get their approval paperwork started. He says OES is investigating and can claw back payments if rules were broken.

Spencer has a decidedly different take on the program’s success, citing 2012’s collection of 75,000 tonnes — up 45 per cent over the previous year: “Really, it reaffirms that Ontarians believe that this program is doing the right thing with their electronics.”

But contrary to the grand pronouncements, it appears that Ontario’s electronic recycling program doesn’t meet its own standards — claimed by many in the industry to be North America’s finest.

Stories of substandard overseas recycling underline just another problem with Ontario’s defective Waste Diversion Act. Environmentalists and industry leaders like Coutts blame it for forcing the companies that sell the products (electronics, household waste and tires) to create recycling collectives that wield too much control over the market and stifle recycling innovation.

Clearly, it’s time for Environment Minister Jim Bradley to pitch the act into the nearest grey bin and start anew with individual producer responsibility. Without substantial change, Ontario’s waste diversion provides, at least in part, little more than junk recycling.

Ontarians pay millions for green recycling of electronic waste, but at least some of it ends up in Third World dumping grounds