The Stormont, Dundas and…

The Stormont, Dundas and Glengarry Regional Waste Working Group, representing six local municipalities, has consolidated comments on the proposed amendments to the Resource Recovery and Circular Economy Act (2016) and are providing them jointly as follows.

***ITEM 1. Gathering Information to Assess System Effectiveness and Plan Future Changes***

We support this amendment as proposed through Schedule 20 of Bill 46, Protect Ontario by Cutting Red Tape Act, 2025.

***ITEM 2. Increasing Transparency on Costs and System Data***

We support this amendment as proposed through Schedule 20 of Bill 46, Protect Ontario by Cutting Red Tape Act, 2025.

***ITEM 3. Maintaining Collection for Small Businesses***

We support this amendment. The SDG Regional Waste Management Working Group, including our municipal neighbours at the City of Cornwall, have collectively been lobbying for a small generator exemption to reduce the duplication of services being provided, the number of waste collection vehicles on the roads, and the increased cost to municipalities who choose to continue providing service to the small business sector.

The Working Group is comprised of rural, local municipalities who collected from a limited number of small businesses to encourage recycling and support our local business owners. The recyclable materials generated by the majority of these small businesses is very equivalent to a residential household. The municipalities in our Working Group all ceased service to these small businesses as of January 1, 2025 given the cost implications.

While the Working Group would like to see these small business generators included in the Producer Responsibility, we acknowledge that this is a positive amendment. Under this model, the cost offered to municipalities must be transparently fair and not subsidizing the Producers’ responsibilities.

We encourage there to be further thought to including small business generators in rural areas as part of the Producer Responsibility to support local economies, preserve landfill capacity across Ontario, and encourage the circular economy.