Ontario's Waste Electrical and Electronic Equipment (WEEE) Program Plan
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Background
In July 2008, the Minister of the Environment approved the first phase of the Waste Electrical and Electronic Equipment (WEEE) Program Plan (the “plan”). This five-year plan was developed by Waste Diversion Ontario (WDO) in co-operation with Ontario Electronic Stewardship (OES) to improve the diversion of televisions, fax machines, computers and peripherals from landfill. WDO is a non-Crown corporation created by the Waste Diversion Act, 2002 (WDA) to develop, implement and operate waste diversion programs. OES is the Industry Funding Organization (IFO) incorporated by WDO to co-operatively develop, implement and operate the WEEE program.
Purpose of the WEEE Program Plan
This plan was developed to address the increasing amount of WEEE sent for disposal in Ontario landfills or to developing countries. Unless properly handled and managed, the toxic materials they contain (e.g., lead, cadmium, mercury) threaten ecosystems and human health. (For a more detailed review of this decision, see Section 4 of the Supplement to this Annual Report).
How it Works
Brand owners, first importers and/or assemblers of non-branded electrical and electronic equipment (EEE) for sale and use in Ontario are designated in the plan as stewards. To cover the program’s operational costs, stewards are required to pay a fee to OES for each product introduced into Ontario, whether sold or otherwise entering the marketplace. Stewards are free, however, to shift the cost of the fee forward to consumers by raising the product price. Stewards that wish to take direct responsibility for managing their obligations under the WDA can apply to the WDO for approval of an Industry Stewardship Plan (ISP).
The first phase of the program, which commenced April 1, 2009, targets the WEEE materials listed in the first column of Table 1. Phase 2 of the plan, which is due on July 10, 2010, will target materials including copiers, telephones, cameras, and audio and video equipment.
Overview of Phase 1 of the WEEE Program Plan
The plan aims to triple the amount of WEEE collected and recycled over the next five years by expanding Ontario’s existing collection system. Although participation in the program by WEEE collectors is voluntary, OES intends to motivate collector participation by offering weight-based financial incentives and transportation services for WEEE collected for end-of-life management.
Reuse and refurbishment organizations will be encouraged to act as collection sites and expand their operations, but will be required to meet a Reuse & Refurbishment Standard to participate in the program. OES does not intend to provide collection or transportation incentives for collected WEEE that is destined for refurbishment and/or reuse.
WEEE collected at OES-approved collection sites will be transported to consolidation centres for quality check, verification and recording of monitoring data before shipment to primary processors. Primary processors undertake any of the following: receiving, sorting, brokering, transporting, dismantling, disassembling, shredding or any other material processing activity, and disposal. Under the plan, OES selects primary processors through a Request for Proposal (RFP) process and allocates collected WEEE to selected processors through a competitive bidding process. Primary processors may then send WEEE components to downstream processors for the further manual or mechanical separation of materials. Downstream processors may separate, process, recover or dispose of materials.
To participate in the program, processors must meet not only regulatory requirements, but also OES’s Electronics Recycling Standard, which is intended to assist in determining whether WEEE materials are managed in a way that safeguards worker health and safety and the environment. Materials managed through incineration, energy recovery and landfill do not constitute diversion under the WEEE plan.
To help achieve collection, reuse and recycling targets, the plan includes a province wide promotion and education program and research and development activities. While the plan contains no targets for reducing the amount of WEEE produced, OES intends to report on examples of Design for the Environment (DfE) initiatives undertaken by OES members to reduce waste.
Public Participation & EBR Process
The Ministry of Environment (MOE) posted the proposal on the Environmental Registry for a 30-day comment period and received 26 comments. Throughout plan development, WDO and OES consulted with stakeholders through workshops and meetings.
There was general support for the plan from municipalities, environmental groups, electronics manufacturers and retailers, although several commenters questioned aspects of the plan from both an environmental and economic perspective. The primary complaint amongst plan supporters was that it fails to prioritize WEEE reduction and reuse over recycling. It was suggested that the lack of reduction and reuse measures in the plan arises from the fact that the OES board is dominated by electronic manufacturers and retailers who stand to lose money if consumers reduce their purchases of new electronics or choose used/ refurbished units over the newest models.
Other commenters questioned the adequacy of collection incentives and targets, the accessibility of drop-off locations, or the consideration of submitted concerns during plan development. A few commenters rejected the waste diversion initiative outright, claiming that the WEEE program is highly intrusive and creates an OES-controlled monopoly that will limit the free market economy and stifle investment and innovation in the recycling industry.
ECO Comment
The ECO believes aspects of the plan will help address the continually growing problem of WEEE. The WEEE plan outlines targets, standards, and processes to improve the collection of WEEE and ensure that it is recycled in a manner that minimizes human and ecosystem impacts. Nonetheless, the ECO believes the plan includes a serious flaw in that it fails to prioritize reduction and reuse over recycling.
The rapid obsolescence of certain electronic products and the limited regulatory clout of the Ontario government over globally-marketed products may make a recycling-focused program seem the most attractive and efficient solution – especially to electronics manufacturers and retailers. However, even if the OES program collects and recycles most of Ontario’s WEEE, this approach cannot be sustainable in the long-term since recycling may degrade the viability and value of industrial materials, squandering the embodied energy used to construct high value components. Ontario should take a leadership role, along with other leading jurisdictions like the EU, and encourage transformative thinking in WEEE management.
Any progressive waste diversion plan includes measures to reduce the amount of waste produced in the first place. We are, therefore, disappointed that the plan does not offer incentives or requirements for manufacturers to:
- reduce the amount of plastics or toxic substances used in EEE;
- improve the ease of disassembly and recycling;
- increase the capacity for product or component reuse; and/or
- extend the life of electronics through improved product design and durability.
Moreover, because manufacturers are charged a fat recycling fee irrespective of a product’s environmental performance, and because improvements to a product’s recyclability will benefit all competing stewards equally, the plan may actually discourage manufacturers from greening their products.
In 2007, the Minister of the Environment asked that WDO’s WEEE program consider “incentives encouraging stewards to initiate measures designed to reduce waste resulting from their products, increase recyclability of products and increase use of recycled content of products.” The ECO does not believe that OES’s intended reporting of steward initiatives will be sufficient on its own to drive manufacturers to green their products. To fulfill the minister’s request, MOE should ask WDO and OES to strengthen WEEE reduction measures in the program, giving a deadline for the delivery of DfE incentives and initiatives.
In the traditional 3Rs hierarchy, “reduction” is accorded the highest priority, followed by “reuse” and finally “recycling.” The ECO is disappointed that the plan offers collection and transportation incentives for “non-reusable” WEEE headed for recycling but not for WEEE destined for reuse. The ECO is concerned that these incentives may motivate organizations to recycle WEEE that could have been reused. The ECO therefore suggests that the program prioritize reuse over recycling by offering financial incentives for collecting reusable WEEE. The ECO also believes the plan should set much more ambitious reuse targets and should exclude customer and end-of-lease returns in its reporting of the number of electronics reused.
Electronics returned to a retailer, manufacturer, or leasing company (either because of customer dissatisfaction or the end of a lease) were never expected to be discarded by the customer into the waste stream, and so do not truly represent waste diversion.
It seems likely that the shortage of WEEE reduction and reuse measures in the plan reflects the manufacturer/retailer composition of the OES board. The ECO notes that while the Minister of the Environment originally requested that the WEEE IFO’s Board of Directors be mixed in composition, the implementing regulation (O. Reg. 393/04) now requires OES board members to be a “director, officer or employee of a corporation that supplies a product from which WEEE is derived.” The ECO encourages MOE to amend O. Reg. 393/04 to require the inclusion of OES board members representing municipalities, recyclers, consumers, and environmental non-government organizations, as intended in the Minister of the Environment’s initial request letter.
To actively encourage the diversion of WEEE from landfill, the ECO believes that MOE should consider restrictions on the hazardous materials permitted in EEE, as exist in the EU and California, and a ban on WEEE in landfills, similar to the ban in Nova Scotia.
| This is an article from the 2008/09 Annual Report to the Legislature from the Environmental Commissioner of Ontario. |
Citing This Article:
Environmental Commissioner of Ontario. 2009. "Taking a Byte out of E-Waste: The Waste Electrical and Electronic Equipment (WEEE) Program Plan." Building Resilience, ECO Annual Report, 2008-09. Toronto, ON : Environmental Commissioner of Ontario. 83-87.
