Waste diversion

Mr. Peter Tabuns:

My question is to the Minister of the Environment. Last year in the middle of the recession, the McGuinty government imposed a new electronics tax on Ontarians: $13 more for computers, $12 for monitors, $10 for televisions. The government promised this $40 million tax would fund recycling of e-waste, but today we read that e-waste recycling has fallen 60% shy of its target, that most e-waste is going to landfills or being illegally exported and that the minister doesn’t know what went wrong. Minister, should we be adding e-waste to climate change inaction and Transit City on the list of broken McGuinty environmental promises?

Hon. John Gerretsen:

First of all the member well knows that this is not a tax. It’s a fee that goes to the Ontario Electronic Stewardship council in order to make sure that electronic waste is properly collected, properly transported and properly recycled. Let’s look at the positive side of it: 17,000 tonnes of material that used to end up in our landfill sites, contaminating those landfill sites, is, in fact, being diverted from the landfill sites. More can be done, and that is precisely why we are taking a close look at the Waste Diversion Act to see how it can be improved to make sure this electronic waste does not end up in our landfill sites and is properly recycled.

The Speaker (Hon. Steve Peters): Supplementary?

Mr. Peter Tabuns:

Well, I am somewhat startled by the Pollyanna perspective of the minister. Nonetheless, it’s clear what has gone wrong. You’ve failed to set and monitor strict guidelines for recycling companies. You’ve allowed companies to unsafely recycle, sell and export highly toxic substances. Government has given one private agency, Ontario Environmental Stewardship, monopoly power over the distribution of e-waste through a top-down quota system that penalizes good companies. When will the government fix this program and stop making Ontarians pay for a complete failure to deal with electronic waste?

Hon. John Gerretsen:

It is not a failure; that’s number one. It’s is absolutely not a failure: 17,000 tonnes are being diverted from landfill sites that otherwise would have ended up there. Can we do better? Absolutely. That’s why we are working with Waste Diversion Ontario and the Ontario Electronic Stewardship council to make sure that the waste does not end up in our landfill sites. That’s why we’re working on an act to make the companies more accountable and to apply the principle of extended producer responsibility to all of those companies that are actually producing the material. That’s the only way to do it. The new act will be coming forth, and the kind of difficulties that have been encountered by the program will be overcome