Article from Volume 9, Issue Number 4, 2022

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Advocacy Update - Multi Family Waste Diversion Fee - Fall 2022

By Alan Forbes | Other articles by Alan Forbes | Feature

While there has been a lull in activity in the City of Winnipeg in regards to the imposition of a multi-family waste diversion (WFWD) fee, the Provincial Government has started a project that will disrupt the City's plans to some extent. Since our last published update in our Summer newsletter (https://cci-manitoba.ca/cci-manitoba-magazine/article/51), I stumbled across a project on the Province’s public engagement website pertaining to municipal recycling programs. While I periodically look at the website for condo related consultation projects I must have missed this one - Proposed Transition for Residential Blue Bin Recycling (https://engagemb.ca/transition-plan-for-recycling-programs). The deadline for providing comments on the plan was August 15th, which was about the time the CCI MB newsletter was delivered to most members (nothing on the web page indicates when they started accepting comments).

The webpage has useful information including a draft transition plan dated Jun 3rd and a backgrounder document. Note that the plan refers to PPP, which is packaging and printed paper and includes newspapers and flyers, aluminum food and beverage containers, steel, glass and plastic food and beverage containers. The intent of the plan is to implement an extended producer responsibility (EPR) model, with Multi-Material Stewardship Manitoba (MMSM) being given the task to develop the plan, and to take over full operational and financial responsibility for municipal recycling programs. Thus the City of Winnipeg's plan for a MFWD fee would no longer be required.

The MMSM plan has merit, in that it pushes the responsibility upstream to the source of the waste material. Another positive aspect is that there will be a rationalization of what is collected (see section 8.8 of the plan) - "...not all PPP has diversion end-markets and therefore the list of PPP targeted for collection will be a subset of designated PPP listed in Appendix B." This will hopefully reduce the amount of trash that Canada exports to other countries as pseudo-recyclables (https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/ fifth-estate-recycling-1.6410657). One other positive aspect of the plan is that fees are collected from the producers for targeted materials regardless of whether or not they will be collected for recycling. Hence there will be a financial incentive to eliminate materials that don't have an end-market.

So, the plan has merit but will it happen? If it does go forward, what is the timeline? There is a Provincial election coming up next year, so now would be a good time to start asking your MLA about the proposed plan and be sure to ask all candidates that come door knocking about it during the election period next year.

Alan Forbes, CCI MB ADVOCACY COMMITTEE