Toronto, ON, Apr. 5--The Ontario government is to announce today its goal of recycling 60 percent of the province's waste by 2008, according to the Toronto Star.
In addition, Environment Minister Leona Dombrowsky is to announce a review of Ontario's troubled environmental assessment review process along with greater co-operation with Ottawa to avoid duplication on environmental matters.
Dombrowsky is to release a discussion paper next month asking for suggestions on ways to boost recycling to 60 percent, including accelerating and expanding centralized composting, increasing the types of products that can be recycled, and working with industry and municipalities to find new markets for recycled materials, a ministry source said.
For example, some parts of the province are recycling a lot more types of plastics than others, the source said, pointing to the Quinte area in Eastern Ontario as having a very successful plastics recycling program.
Dombrowsky recently visited a plant in Belleville that uses recycled plastic for making flooring "and she came back from that really excited because they can use all the plastic they can get their hands on, apparently."
There is now a patchwork of recycling programs across the province with some municipalities being far more successful in diverting waste from landfill sites than even neighboring communities.
Guelph is one example where upwards of 60 percent of the waste collected is being recycled in one way or another, while Toronto has a relatively underperforming Blue Box program.
The source said the government will also be using "moral suasion" to convince industry to reduce packaging as well as to use more recycled materials in that packaging.
Meanwhile, Ontario has been plagued for years with environmental assessment review problems, particularly when it comes to expanding or establishing landfill sites.
Under the NDP in the early 1990s, the process ground to a virtual standstill. But then the Conservatives came along in 1995, bringing in so-called "scoped" environmental assessments, a quicker process, which critics said was designed with the proponent in mind.
Dombrowsky is to appoint a ten person expert panel to study the environmental assessment review process with an eye to streamlining it, while still addressing everyone's concerns.
There are some 14 proposed landfill sites on hold awaiting this review.
Paul Muldoon, executive director of the Canadian Environmental Law Association, welcomed the review with the reservation that streamlining doesn't result in the public losing its voice.
Keith Carrigan, president of BFI Canada, the second largest waste management firm in the country, said the current review process has "been troublesome for everyone" and wants the rules to be clear.
He believes Ontario can achieve its goal of diverting 60 percent of waste from landfill, but says even then there are going to have to be more landfill sites in heavily populated areas.
"Even if we recycle 60 percent, the waste stream is going to continue to grow...and we are still going to require disposal facilities for the remaining 40 percent," he said.
