EPR Canada launches new Report Card to evaluate provincial Environmental Programs

Interesting idea from our neighbors to the North.  Perhaps we need something like this in the United States as well, Matt Prindiville, Associate Director

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE:

March 23, 2012

EPR Canada launches new Report Card to evaluate provincial Environmental Programs

OTTAWA, ONTARIO, Friday March 23, 2012 – Extended Producer Responsibility (EPR) programs are burgeoning in every province across Canada in an effort to have waste producers pay for the management of consumer products and packaging that they put into the marketplace. EPR Canada today announced the launch of a Report Card to evaluate the policies which support these programs. This first of its kind environmental Report Card will be made public and be posted on the EPR Canada website (eprcanada.ca) in June this year.

“This week, we are mailing detailed questionnaires to the Environment Ministers of  each provincial government asking them to provide specific information on their policies and programs to support extended producer responsibility” said Duncan Bury one of the leads for this new initiative. “Government legislation and actions play a key role in stimulating private sector and consumer activity in EPR program development, performance and monitoring”.

EPR Canada has assembled a panel of the leading experts in the field in Canada to review each government’s response and to score their performance. The results of  these scores will be released at an open public event this June and will be posted on the EPR Canada website.

“We of course can’t compel every government to participate” said Geoff Love, another project lead for EPR Canada, “but we are confident that provincial authorities will find it to be in their interest to conduct an annual, independent check-up of these important environmental programs. Extended producer responsibility is one environmental area where Canada continues to be a world leader”.

The project is internally funded by the founding members of EPR Canada. It is expected that a Report Card will be prepared each year for the next 5 years.

EPR Canada was formed in the fall of 2011 as a not for profit association of like-minded individuals who have been involved with producer responsibility programs across Canada since the inception of EPR in provinces across Canada. The seven founding members are profiled on the website at eprcanada.ca. The goal of the association is to help ensure the continued growth and improvement of EPR policies programs and practices across Canada.

The Canadian Council of Ministers of the Environment defines extended producer responsibility (EPR) as a policy approach in which a producer’s responsibility, physical and/or financial, for a product is extended to the post-consumer stage of a product’s life cycle. EPR shifts responsibility upstream in the product life cycle to the producer and away from municipalities. As a policy approach it provides incentives to producers to incorporate environmental considerations in the design of their products. EPR also shifts the historical public sector tax-supported responsibility for some waste to the individual brand owner, manufacturer or first importer.

For further information please contact Duncan Bury or Geoff Love or write to info@eprcanada.ca.

Contacts:

Duncan Bury

Extended Producer Responsibility Canada

613-729-0499

duncan@duncanburyconsulting.ca   

Geoff Love

EPR Canada

519-305-0984

loveenvironment@rogers.com

www.eprcanada.ca

Product Policy Institute Releases New Legislative Toolkit

By Matt Prindiville, Associate Director 

After many requests for an organized resource to provide background for legislators and advocates interested in EPR issues, we’ve put one together that provides a good starting point for understanding and advocating for producer responsibility initiatives.

On our new Legislative Toolkit page, you’ll find our EPR Starter Kit, which is a great resource to learn more about EPR policy and key issues to understand and address during legislative campaigns. You’ll discover our History of EPR in North America, which is a primer on how EPR evolved in the United States and Canada.  You can also find links to model legislation, product campaign resources, a list of EPR advocates in the United States, and more. 

Lastly, we feature our recently-developed fact sheet on economic benefits of producer responsibility.  There have been a lot of excellent new reports on recycling and jobs - from the 2011 Tellus Institute Report, which demonstrates that we can create 1.5 million new jobs by increasing our national recycling rate to 75%, to the Container Recycling Institute Jobs report, which shows that container-deposit recycling initiatives (a.k.a. “bottle bills”) create more jobs than any other type of recycling initiative to date.  We’ve compiled key findings from these reports and others demonstrating that there are real opportunities to grow American jobs through increasing recycling - and that EPR is a key policy tool to achieve this goal.

We hope you find these resources helpful and that you will share our new Legislative Toolkit with anyone who may be interested in sustainability issues.  We’re also completely open to suggestions for new materials or even new research that we can conduct to help support your efforts to advance producer responsibility.  You can e-mail Matt Prindiville at matt@productpolicy.org with your feedback.