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Notes for remarks

by

The Honourable Laurel Broten
Minister of the Environment

at the

Annual General Meeting: Association of Municipal Recycling Co-ordinators
“Recycling and Sustainable Solutions in Waste Management”

Hockley Valley Resort, Orangeville, Ontario
Thursday, February 16, 2006

(Check against delivery)

Good evening, everyone. It’s a pleasure to be here with you.

I bring greetings from Premier Dalton McGuinty. Together with my colleagues from Queen’s Park, we send our best wishes to your association for a successful annual general meeting.

Waste diversion is certainly in the news a lot these days. I don’t know if you all feel flattered by the attention.

More than ever before, it seems that public awareness is high around the very issue that you deal with every day.

Perhaps you noticed, as I did, an article in the current issue of Corporate Knights magazine in which a biologist, Janine Benyus, talks about learning from the natural world.

She says that if you look at a forest, you see a system that depends on recycling to survive. The forest has filled up all the land, and has used as much water and soil as it can to grow. Now in order to survive, the forest uses a complicated root system to recycle nutrients, conserve water and be as efficient as possible.

If a forest can’t sustain itself, it starts to die.

Does this sound familiar? A city is no different from a forest. It must not consume its resources too quickly. It cannot afford to simply waste what it consumes. That’s just not sustainable. But if this premise resonated with any audience, it’s this one.
You all have vital roles to play in helping us achieve our environmental goals. Recycling is one of the fundamental things we do to protect our air, land and water resources, and the outstanding quality of life that we enjoy in Ontario.

Vous avez tous un rôle essentiel à jouer pour nous aider à atteindre nos objectifs environnementaux. C’est l’un des aspects fondamentaux des efforts que nous déployons pour protéger l’air, les sols et l’eau, et pour préserver l’excellente qualité de vie des Ontariens et des Ontariennes.

Over the years, communities have made steady progress in waste diversion – thanks in large part to your efforts, and to the people in your communities who support local recycling programs.

I want to congratulate the AMRC and your communities for the great work you have done towards achieving higher targets for waste diversion.

Ontario had North America’s first Blue Box curb-side recycling program. A quarter-century later, the Blue Box is one of the most recognizable symbols of environmental responsibility all over the world.

The Blue Box has done wonders for the environment. It has allowed for real progress in waste diversion, and it has helped millions of Ontarians change their views on environmental stewardship. Recycling is a basic reflex now in our society, an everyday part of life.

Of course, this didn’t just happen by osmosis! It took a large investment by multiple levels of government and years of sustained public education. It’s a legacy of cooperation and perseverance that led to our success.

A clear sign of this success is that waste diversion rates have gone up right across Ontario. More than four million households across the province now have access to recycling – and that number continues to grow each year.

More and more communities are starting to offer composting programs, and green-bin programs to divert food and other organic materials from the waste stream which is encouraging.

Overall, the numbers show a 74-per-cent increase in the total amount of recovered recycling materials over the last 10 years. That’s a very positive statistic. And much of the credit is due to the hard work of people like you.

One of the most important issues we face is the knowledge that Ontario will undergo a tremendous growth spurt over the next 30 years.

Between now and 2030, the population of the Greater Golden Horseshoe region alone will increase by 3.7 million people, and generate almost two million new jobs.

That works out to an annual population increase of roughly 140,000 new people. That’s like building a city the size of Barrie every year.

We need to plan carefully how we are going to accommodate that growth, and how best to deal with its many implications. There is increased demand for schools, health care facilities, clean water, roads, transit, and of course more effective waste management.

We have to reduce the total amount of waste our society produces. We have to increase the rates at which we reuse and recycle materials. And we have to reduce the total amount of waste we send for disposal in landfills.

Currently, as you know, Southern Ontario is trucking millions of tonnes of its municipal and industrial waste to Michigan each year. Clearly, this is not a sustainable long-term solution.

Given the rate of growth that’s expected in Ontario, we need to get moving on that strategy right away.

Environmental protection is a shared responsibility, and a workable solution to our waste management problems will require a co-operative effort from all sectors.

Municipal waste managers are on the front line in this battle. You need to continue the good work you are doing, and keep expanding and developing innovative new programs … to get more people onside, and less waste going to landfill.

As you know, we have already had a number of important breakthroughs. One of those was solving the problem of blue box funding.

Through Stewardship Ontario, half of the cost of municipal blue box programs is now paid by the industries that produce those materials. In 2006 alone, funding to municipalities under the Blue Box Program will total about $55.5 million.

That is real and significant progress.

We introduced new regulations that make Ontario’s hazardous waste rules among the toughest in North America. The new Land Disposal Restriction program requires all hazardous waste to be treated before being sent to landfill.

Many of you have also done work with us environmental assessment and are probably curious about when you will be hearing more.

As you know, my ministry set up a panel to review opportunities for improving the environmental assessment process in three sectors, including waste management.

I want you to know that I have noted that may of you were very supportive of the waste sector table report and I take very seriously those comments and have noted the differences.

We are looking carefully at how to make the EA process more transparent, efficient and streamlined but ensuring that projects are good for the environment.

The input and advice of municipalities and other waste sector stakeholders such as AMRC, will continue to be very important to me as we move forward into the next phase of improving the EA process.

We also recently revised the provincial composting standards to match the Canada-wide standards. This makes it easier for municipalities to compost organic wastes, and help create more end-uses for the composted material.

Organics currently account for almost 40 per cent of the municipal waste stream, and more than 10 per cent of all industrial, commercial and institutional wastes. These materials therefore have a very important role to play in increasing our waste diversion rates.

The first step is to start thinking about organic materials as valuable resources – not garbage. But to increase the amount of organics we divert from landfill, we need to address many of the same challenges we face with other recovered materials.

For example, we need to connect those who generate the materials with those who can use them. We need to develop new approaches and technologies for collecting and processing organic wastes.

And of course, we need to ensure effective compliance with our provincial and municipal regulations. Some of you have asked if I will be designating household hazardous wastes and organics under the Waste Diversion Act, and I would like to take a moment to speak about that.

Designating more materials under the Waste Diversion Act is key to increasing our diversion rates.

The WDO has an important role in this province and the government is continuing to work closely with Waste Diversion Ontario on new programs to divert even more materials from landfill.

WDO has provided a valuable contribution to our efforts and successes in Ontario. Glenda, you should be proud of yourself and your organization.

In fact, I’d like to take this opportunity to tell you here this evening that I understand your concerns and the challenges faced by WDO. Don’t be mistaken – I understand the need for movement and action. We want to ensure that WDO has a future with a strong mandate and a successful program.

To that end, I plan to take necessary steps in the very near future to help move WDO forward.

This spring, I will be meeting with the WDO board and there I will plan to provide some clear direction to ensure that the great work you’re doing will continue with the support from government you deserve.

We will look at what other designations we may ask WDO to undertake, including organics or household hazardous waste, but before we do that we want to be certain we have resolved the direction on the outstanding programs such as electronics, tires and used oil and then move forward.

It’s good to look at the big picture, as well. Our government’s waste diversion efforts go hand in hand with our other environmental initiatives. We are protecting air quality by committing to close all of Ontario’s coal-burning electricity plants, and replacing them with facilities that are cleaner and greener.

And along with the insidious threat of air pollution, we are also addressing that other demon of the 21st century – climate change.

In fact, it’s highly appropriate that you’ll cover this subject in your discussions tomorrow given that today – February 16 – is the first anniversary of the activation of the Kyoto Protocol.

What we build, where we live, how we get our fuel and energy, and how we manage our waste – these have changed many times in our history. They will change again, and it is our responsibility to see that they change for the better.

I believe that actions we take on climate change will help our waste diversion efforts, and vice versa. By taking real action now, you’ll find that in 50 years our province could look like a very different place.

Ontario could build North America’s most advanced economy based on clean and renewable fuels, on zero-emission transportation, on energy-efficient buildings, and made-in-Ontario solutions that minimize waste and maximize efficiency.

And new technologies - clean, energy producing technologies - that also address our waste issues are another area that is important for the province to seriously consider.

We are committed to removing barriers while ensuring that there is a regulatory climate in Ontario that supports new technology and pilot projects.

We are, for example, looking at whether some substances currently defined as “wastes” could be defined as “products” to allow them to be safely used in another way.

These changes must be considered carefully because we must always ensure that the environment and our air quality are protected. We need new options for energy and we need new options for waste so this is productive undertaking for municipalities on both fronts.

In waste diversion and recycling, we have made solid progress, and the statistics show that we are making some gains. We can and we must do better. And as our society continues to grow, we will need to be innovative just to consolidate the gains we’ve already made.

Au chapitre du réacheminement des déchets et du recyclage, nous avons fait de réels progrès, et les statistiques indiquent que nous avons réalisé certaines avancées. Nous devons toutefois persévérer et faire encore davantage.

We will help communities across the province develop sustainable solutions to their waste management needs. I know that everyone here tonight shares that goal, and I am looking forward to working with you in the months to come, to build a better, more sustainable future for everyone in Ontario.

Nothing makes me feel better in my role as Environment Minister than to be able to say that we are working to find a cleaner, greener future for our children.

Thank you.

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