Tag: Ontario

Ontario Electronic Waste Program

Starting in April 2009 people living in the Canadian province of Ontario will start paying a levy on electronic products that are costly to recycle. These added fees will go to fund the expensive recycling procedures for electronics, while also expanding the program.

The fees will go to an arm’s-length organization established by Waste Diversion Ontario and will be used to fund the collection and recycling of the products from hundreds of drop-off locations to be established across the province.

The program for TVs and computers is just the beginning of the province’s plans. Waste Diversion Ontario, which creates and runs recycling programs for the province, will today begin drafting the next phase of electronics recycling in Ontario. By next summer, the agency will put forward a plan to recycle nearly all other electronic products.

The ultimate purpose of adding recycling fees is to force manufacturers to create more environmentally friendly products.

Under the program, the fees, which are expected to total $62 million in the first year, could drop in future years if, for example, the cost to recycle the products decreases because manufacturers have removed lead or mercury components.

Things Are Good’s occasional writer, Cam Proctor, will be working on the program! Congrats to Cam!

Ontario and Quebec Don’t Like Carbon

I’m not a big fan of carbon trading but there is good news insofar that two Canadian provinces, Ontario and Quebec have decided to tackle environmental concerns. The Canadian federal government has followed the lead of Bush’s administration and have tried to stop any environmental progress, indeed they even say Ontario and Quebec are wrong because they are doing something. I sure this is the first of many headlines that show the provinces leading the environmental way in Canada.

It’s great to see two large provinces in Canada teaming up to show the federal government that they are open to legislating improved environmental protection.

Charest called tackling the issue of climate change a “tremendous challenge for humanity.”

He said whoever becomes the next U.S. president will be doing a “180-degree turn” on climate change policy, and the two provinces shouldn’t wait for that to happen before making changes of their own.

“Why wait for the Americans? We want to subscribe to everything that is being done on the European level and the North American level,” Charest told reporter

Ontario Banning ‘Cosmetic’ Pesticides

People in Ontario will have nicer grass to roll around in next year – except on golf courses and farmer’s fields. No, I have no idea how using pesticides on a golf courses aren’t classified as a cosmetic use, although golf course might still be subject to the law (I don’t know yet). The main thrust of the legislation is to ban the sale of consumer pesticides, municipal bans could be circumvented by buying the pesticides and using them anyway. Now that loophole will be closed.

The provincewide ban is aimed at replacing a patchwork of local pesticide bylaws, but Ontario farmers will be exempt. There’s no word yet if the province also plans to exempt golf courses from the ban.

The Conservatives and New Democrats said Monday they would likely support the legislation, but they first want to make sure the ban will actually help the environment and isn’t just a public relations move by the Liberal government.

“I think our inclination is to probably support it, but at the same time we want to hear from the folks who are experts in this area, and whether they think it’s all politics or whether there is going to be some meaningful benefit to the environment,” said Opposition Leader Bob Runciman.

Free Flowing Hydro Power

TreeHugger has a post up that serves as a good reminder of all the tidal power generators that are being built in North America right now. Including Ontario’s announced tidal wave power feasibility study.

The Cornwall Ontario River Energy Project – 15 Megawatts
The province of Ontario is investing C$2.2 million into a project to demonstrate the feasibility and commercial viability of using free flow turbines to harness some of the St. Lawrence River’s kinetic energy and turn it into electricity.

This project is for 15 megawatts, enough to power 11,000 average-sized homes, but Verdant estimates that “there is enough potential power in the water currents of Canada’s tides, rivers and manmade channels to generate 15,000 MW of electricity using its technology”. That would be about the equivalent of 15 big coal power plants.

But we have to wonder… Did they pick Cornwall just because they could make a really cool acronym? The Cornwall Ontario River Energy (CORE) Project.