Recycling

Biography

Biography: Jonathan Cocker

Abstract

Industry-Funded Organizers to be Disbanded Currently, each province designates "Industry-Funded Organizations" or IFOs to enlist and coordinate the waste management activities of all of waste diversion participants, including the producers, haulers, recoverors, processors and reusers. These IFOs allocate volumes, set fee structures, rate performance and conduct auditing and performance assessments by all the regulated parties. The results have been viewed as inefficient, costly and creating uncertainty as a barrier to long-term investment and innovation. A call for market forces to dictate waste diversion management has led Ontario to commence disbanding the IFOs and placing the obligations for waste diversion (over a growing range of products/waste streams) back upon the producers/first importers/brand owners with little obligation other than diversion itself. Waste Management "Wild West" in Need of Diversion Expertise / Solutions It is anticipated that the producers will be seeking any number of solutions to discharge their IPR responsibilities for their substantial volumes of regulated waste. IPR only mandates the diversion of waste, but leaves open a variety of recovery and reutilization options previously precluded by the IFOs, but now made possible by the shift to market forces. Producers and related industry parties will be seeking environmentally-sound, yet market savvy strategies for their waste streams and, as North America's first IPR program, the experience and expertise from the European Union and elsewhere is highly valued in giving producers the assurance that waste diversion and environmental compliance will be achieved. As the IPR model will be replicated elsewhere in North America, the current Ontario model offers waste management participants with a rare opportunity to define the future.  This paper will look at the opportunities that a transition to IPR will mean for the waste management industry and their diversion strategies across various regulated waste streams in North America.