Canada – Ontario has mixed environmental record, reports Environmental Commissioner One billion aluminium cans not being recycled

Gord Miller, Environmental Commissioner of Ontario (ECO), has released his fifth annual report to the Legislature. In his remarks at a press conference held this morning at Queen‘‘s Park, Commissioner Miller said that while he welcomed some of the government‘‘s recent proposals, the province still had a mixed environmental record during the past year.



The people of Ontario are also responsible for the environmental legacy left to future generations, Miller said. “We have not made any significant progress toward a sustainable future at the level of our personal lifestyles. The point is, our individual ecological footprint is too big, and every year there are more of us – so the collective footprint just keeps expanding.”



The Waste Diversion Programme for Blue Box Waste



Waste management has been one of the most controversial issues in Ontario over the past four years. Ever since the Adams Mine controversy re-emerged in the late 1990s, policy makers have focused on how to divert more waste from disposal. One such programme, the municipal Blue Box system, was given a boost in December 2003, when the Minister of the Environment approved the Blue Box Program Plan (BBPP) under the Waste Diversion Act (WDA). Under the BBPP, industries (called “stewards”) that generate printed paper and packaging materials which enter the municipal Blue Box system are required to fund 50 per cent of the total net costs of the residential stream of the system – approximately C$3 million each month – beginning February 2004 (under a de minimis rule, small companies that meet certain criteria are exempt from paying fees).



There are now two Ontario regulations that define Blue Box waste:

O.Reg. 101/94, for municipalities, dating back to 1995; and

O.Reg. 273/02, for stewards, dating from February 2004.

The need to increase aluminum soft drink can recovery rates



According to the ECO, one troubling aspect of the Blue Box system (BBS) is that approximately one billion – one thousand million – aluminium soft drink (SD) cans are not recycled by Ontarians each year and are being sent to landfills and other disposal facilities.



The recovery and recycling of aluminium cans are important for several reasons. First, recycling these containers conserves very large amounts of energy and raw materials. Second, the extraction and processing of the raw materials needed to make new cans release large quantities of pollutants and greenhouse gases (GHGs).



In 2003, the World Watch Institute estimated that making 1 million tonnes of aluminium cans from virgin materials requires 4.95 million tonnes of bauxite ore and the energy equivalent of 35 million barrels of crude oil. Recycling the cans, in comparison, saves all of the bauxite and more than 75 per cent of the energy, and avoids production of about 75 per cent of the pollutants. Recycling just one aluminium can saves enough electricity to run a laptop computer for 4 hours. The aluminium industry also significantly affects climate change.



One 1992 Environment Canada report estimated that the aluminium sector in Canada was producing GHGs equivalent to 6 per cent of Canada‘‘s entire output of carbon dioxide because the manufacturing process emits perfluorocarbons (PFCs) – and the impact of PFCs is 6,500 to 9,200 times higher than that of carbon dioxide. [since the mid-1990s, Canadian aluminium manufacturers have made significant reductions in their discharges of GHGs because they have shifted production to newer facilities. For example, in 2003 Alcan reported that its worldwide operations had reduced their GHG emissions by approximately 1.45 million tonnes per year in 2001 and 2002, an overall cut of 15 per cent compared to 1999 levels].



Initially, aluminium SD can recovery rates for the BBS were very low. One 1989 study estimated that only 5 per cent of aluminium SD cans sold