Brutkey

Ev Delen
@evdelen@mstdn.ca

There's yet another angle on the #DougFord grift by privatizing recycling collection across #Ontario: get municipalities to pay the private, for-profit "Producer Responsibility Organization" to pickup recycling from "noneligible" properties under the privatization scheme.

What's an "noneligible" property you ask? All non-residential property in the province.
- All private sector businesses;
- Restaurants
- Places of worship
- Daycares
- Campgrounds
- Municipal buildings
- Non-profits (shelters, food banks)

This privatization, with the professed goal of saving municipalities the cost of running recycling programs, is going to result in municipalities paying private companies to do recycling pickup at many of the properties in their borders!

"The Niagara Region estimates that servicing the area’s ... noneligible properties would cost around $3.5 million a year ... about $2 million more than current costs..."

https://www.thestar.com/business/ford-governments-new-recycling-law-doesnt-cover-stores-and-restaurants-so-some-may-find-they/article_29056d4c-a9db-4363-a176-c1e4251455c0.html

#ONPoli #Cities #Urbanism #Corruption #Conservatives

ikeacurtains
@ikeacurtains@mstdn.ca

@evdelen@mstdn.ca Hmm something about this isn't jiving. Waste/BB pickup is already privatized via a P3 agreement that the municipalities (thus taxpayers) pay for. This new model (EPR) is supposed to, as far as I've understood it, shift the cost of waste collection from municipalities to producers, the purpose of this being to make producers responsible for the environmental impact of their products through the entire lifecycle including end-of-life management (ie recycling & disposal). The PROs are non-profits created to act on behalf of the producers to meet their EPR obligations as set by provincial regulations. Sorta like how The Beer Store operated on behalf of the big beer companies to distribute beer. It's the producers that are supposed to pay into the PRO, not the municipalities.

Also, this isn't just an Ontario thing, it's happening all over the place including the EU who is generally a leader when it comes to sustainability and environmental protections.

Lookup Extended Producer Responsibility

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ikeacurtains
@ikeacurtains@mstdn.ca

@evdelen@mstdn.ca that said, I'm sure the Ontario government will find a way to fuck up what is a generally good idea, by creating weak regulations that will let the producers off the hook. Which I guess is what's happening here?

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Ev Delen
@evdelen@mstdn.ca

@ikeacurtains@mstdn.ca Basically the Ford administration found a way to exploit the buzz around Extended Producer Responsibility in the late 2010's to create a private middle layer that can make lots of money.

There's already scandal among the ranks: https://www.thestar.com/business/battle-brewing-in-ontario-recycling-industry-as-fines-against-tire-makers-loom-for-failure-to/article_2ccf2add-033e-4037-86c3-4715c8c55c0b.html

Under the old system municipalities were responsible for both landfill-bound AND recycling collection. Some municipalities contracted out while others kept it in house.

The Beer Store has always been a for-profit entity, it is just that they only had 3 shareholders that mattered. In 2015, under public pressure, they created "open ownership" so craft brewer's could could buy B-class non-voting shares.

The PRO's are just a mechanism for extracting money. There is "competition" now but the sector has been structured such that it will eventually become a private monopoly.

Harris did this with Health & Elder Care and sits on boards for them now, even got Ford to indemnify them for COVID. Ford, taking cues from Tony Soprano, is doing it with Trash.

ikeacurtains
@ikeacurtains@mstdn.ca

@evdelen@mstdn.ca it's amazing how the EU and Canada can take the same idea and have such wildly different outcomes.

Ev Delen
@evdelen@mstdn.ca

@ikeacurtains@mstdn.ca No, it's often by design.

Conservatives in Canada have figured out it's easier to sabotage a policy from the inside than to out-and-out oppose it.

Look at former Ontario Conservative Leader and Toronto Mayor John Tory's initial implementation of the Swedish Vision Zero:

"cut serious collisions involving pedestrians and cyclists by 20 per cent over the next decade".

(Lowering speed limits part of plan: Mayor wants to dedicate $68M to road safety over next 10 years. Spurr, Ben. Toronto Star. 14 June 2016)

Although he publicly backtracked on this after people rightly pointed out that a 20% reduction over 10 years is hardly a vision to getting to zero, the same plan largely got implemented, with rising deaths of pedestrians and un-motorized road users.