TheStar.com Ontario Recycling fees seen as spur to electronics makers

But that will not happen if consumers happily accept the fees â " $10.07 on TVs and up to $13.44 on computers â " being added to their bill, said Joanne St. Godard, executive director of the Recycling Council of Ontario.

We want consumers to understand that if every television has a visible (recycling) fee, brand owners have used this program to off-load their responsibilities," said St. Godard, who is on the board of Waste Diversion Ontario, which created a recycling-fee plan now before the province for approval.

Rather than dumping recycling costs on the consumer, the intent of the program is to force producers to rethink how they make products and what happens when people throw them out. You can't force them to internalize costs. But maybe because this is a new cost of doing business, they'll (say): Research and development people, can you have a look to see if a mercury switch can be taken out because that happens to be an expensive part of managing that product?'

The $62 million proposed program is broken into per-item fees that would be charged directly to the maker or first importer of specified electronics. It's left to them to decide how they pay for it: add the fee to the consumer's bill, as is done in other provinces, raise prices or absorb the cost.

If products were made in a more environmentally friendly manner, such as having fewer toxic components, recycling costs could decline. But there is no incentive to do that if all businesses do is pass on costs. With the plan in place, likely about a year from now, consumers should comparison-shop based on price, features and who's greenest, she said. We don't want people saying: It costs me $5 to recycle this.

I'm being an environmental steward.' The point is the manufacturer is supposed to be the steward."

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