Recycling rules mismanaged

Multi- Material B. C.’ s retail- driven vision doesn’t serve other sectors well

Re: Businesses seek 11th- hour derailment of recycling initiative, March 10

Over the past three years of consultations about Multi- Material B. C.’ s recycling plan, there were numerous tense meetings where serious concerns were raised by affected businesses and public interest groups. These concerns were never acknowledged or addressed by the Ministry of Environment. The Ministry of Environment has mismanaged this file. It did not have to be so.

I worked for the Recycling Council of B. C. in the 1990s, when better oversight by the ministry gave rise to product take- back programs for everything from juice boxes to computers, programs that are serving as a model for other jurisdictions across North America.

But the ministry made a serious error in 2010 by legislating producer responsibility for packaging and printed paper all at once, rather than working with one industry at a time as in the past. No wonder there is tension and mistrust when they are shoehorned into the same legislated mandate.

Then the ministry encouraged MMBC to create a plan for all these discontented business sectors. MMBC is an organization driven by the retail sector, an industry with its own interests, which are often at odds with the producers they claim to represent.

With the ministry’s blessing, MMBC has been able to seize monopolistic control over what is essentially the entire recycling infrastructure for a broad range of materials in B. C. The worst is yet to come. The ministry has very few tools to hold MMBC accountable. HELEN SPIEGELMAN Vancouver