Ontario's new recycling policy unfairly burdens small businesses with costs, as municipalities drop commercial collection and producers pass on fees. Policy changes are needed to avoid further harm.
Municipal elected officials learned at the recent Federation of Northern Ontario Municipalities, thanks to a question from Northeast Town Mayor Al MacNevin during a bearpit session, that there are three municipalities in Ontario (out of 444) that are picking up the tab for small business recycling in their communities.
Unfortunately, what came back from the minister was that municipalities should be paying for recycling out of the savings they get from not being mandated to collect the recycling. An odd bit of non-circular logic there.
The vast majority of Ontario鈥檚 municipalities have completely canceled their commercial curbside recycling programs. Under the previous 50/50 cost-sharing model, many cities allowed small businesses to place blue boxes on the curb alongside residential homes. However, because municipalities no longer receive funding or provincial infrastructure support for recycling, continuing to collect commercial waste is no longer economically viable for local tax bases.
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