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Ontario

Name of Program	Bag It Back
Administering Agency	the 'Beer Store'
Containers covered	All alcoholic beverages
Redemption rates	Refillable beer, “Industry Standard Bottle”, LCBO and The Beer Store: 97%; Aluminum Beer Cans: 67%1 Aluminum 38.2%
Amount of deposit	Metal containers up to 1L, other containers up to 630mL: 10¢; Metal containers over 1L, other containers over 630mL: 20¢; (Excludes containers under 100mL and containers purchased at duty-free stores)
Fees or taxes	~
Reclamation System	Return to Beer Store only, LCBO does not take empties.
Unredeemed Deposits	Retained by beer distributor/ bottler
Handling Fees	~
Complementary Recycling Programs	97% of households and 60% of apartment buildings have access to curbside recycling.

Details

Ontario is the only province without a strong producer responsibility policy.  Instead, it relies on a municipally funded curbside recycling system for most beverage containers and an industry funded deposit-return system for beer containers.  All containers except beer… are recycled through the Blue Box.  There has been a major ongoing battle over deposits in Ontario, with soft drink producers and grocery retailing companies resisting deposits.

Beer System

Beer is sold out of two major channels, the 'Beer Store,' run by the Brewers, and the Liquor Control Board of Ontario (LCBO) run by the government. In addition, in some rural areas alcohol is sold through LCBO Combination Stores and Agency Stores. Combination stores are owned by the LCBO but have a more even split between Wine/Spirits and Beer on their shelves. Agency stores are privately owned but are licensed to distribute alcohol in remote communities where a full beer store is not justified. Domestic and Imported beer is sold through all locations, however not all imported beer is returnable for a refund.

Refillable beer containers have a 97% recovery rate and are reused 15-18 times. All costs, such as handling and transportation, are internalized through the Beer Store system. The Beer Store augments its recovery infrastructure through the use of authorized empty bottle dealers to collect used containers in rural markets serviced by LCBO Combination and Agency stores. All beer container deposits are fully refundable.  

The beer industry has taken producer responsibility one step further in Ontario with its "100% packaging take-back commitment." The industry has committed to continuing efforts to recover, through its retail channels, all of its packaging wastes: corrugate, boxboard, paper bags, plastic bags, plastic six pack rings and even bottle caps. The industry claims an audited result of 97.5% total recovery of its whole suite of packaging materials, a figure it intends to improve upon. 

Wine and spirits are sold out of the LCBO only, as well as some small producer-run wine stores. There is no deposit on these containers and the consumer currently only has one avenue of disposal - curbside recycling.

Non-Beer System

Name of program	Waste Diversion Act2
Redemption rates	OVERALL RESIDENTIAL: 52.9% (via blue box);3
Handling Fees	Ontario's Waste Diversion Act requires all companies that introduce packaging and printed paper into Ontario’s consumer marketplace to share in paying 50% of the funding of Ontario's municipal Blue Box programs.4

There used to be a refundable deposit system in Ontario when beverages were all sold in refillable glass.  In the mid- to late-70s, the soft drink industry began a strategy of consolidating its bottling production to reduce costs.  The industry also began to increase the number of cans and PET plastic containers in the market.  In the early 80s refillable glass had dropped steadily as a percentage of beverage sales and efforts were made by government to preserve refillables.  The soft drink industry was able to negotiate a reduction in what was a formal refillable quota from 75% to 30% by agreeing to contribute $20 million over five years to expand the Blue Box system.

Ontario's Waste Diversion Act [now] requires all companies that introduce packaging and printed paper into Ontario’s consumer marketplace ("Stewards") to share in paying 50% of the funding of Ontario's municipal Blue Box waste diversion programs.5  

Currently under 2% of soft drink production is in refillable containers, far below the 30% quota requirement. Funding for the curbside recycling system was supposed to come from the provincial government, municipalities and the industry group OMMRI (Ontario Multi-Material Recycling Inc. - now called Corporations Supporting Recycling (CSR)). A recent study, however, found that industry paid only $41 million over the ten years from 1985 to 1996 into the Blue Box, while the government of Ontario states that the total capital and operating costs of the Blue Box system has been $550 million over the same time span. The difference between the costs and the industry contribution has been funded by provincial and municipal taxpayers. However, all industry funding has now ended and the provincial government also ceased its support in March 1996. 

Municipalities are now responsible for paying all curbside recycling costs. The Recycling Council of Ontario estimates that the current curbside Blue Box system costs municipalities $46 million annually. Municipalities are encountering particularly high costs for collecting and recycling plastic and glass and they also face declining quantities of aluminum containers as soft drink manufacturers switch to plastic containers. Accordingly, municipalities have, en masse, taken a tough lobbying stand favoring deposits. This includes all of the biggest cities in the province including the newly amalgamated city of Toronto - a municipality of 2.5 million people. 

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