The Last Exile

Who fracking knew when you buy dish soap you now have to pay an Eco Fee but it’s not a tax according to Steward Ontario. Non-profit agency regulated by the Ontario government to manage ‘waste’ disposal that very few had heard of until the ‘eco fees’ hit you at the cash register on July 1st. Try figuring out just how these ‘stewardship’ councils were created and good luck with that. Toronto Star

Checking her receipt as she left a downtown Canadian Tire, Chris Colorado noticed a new charge. Her $1.99 bottle of dish soap was accompanied by a 13-cent “eco fee.” The levy for thousands of new products, from pharmaceuticals to fire extinguishers, quietly came into effect July 1, the same day as the harmonized sales tax.
But unlike that tax, provincial agencies have done little to publicize the new fees, catching consumers like Colorado by surprise. “I’ve never heard anything about this fee. No one’s talking about it,” she said. “The fact they just put it without us knowing, I don’t think it’s honest. I don’t like it.”

Manufacturers must pay the province a levy for recycling their products. Some companies are passing these costs, ranging from a few cents to several dollars per product, onto consumers. Stewardship Ontario, the agency overseeing the eco fees, began its $2.5 million public education campaign at the beginning of the month, which consists of posters and radio spots, as well as a group which tours public events and provides information about the program. “We would rather spend the money to educate people than to spend the money months ahead to say, ‘Hey, there’s a new eco fee coming,’ ” said spokeswoman Amanda Harper Sevonty. “Our message to consumers isn’t about the eco fees. Our message to consumers is about here are the materials and what to do with them.”

(…)The fees now cover all aerosol containers from hairspray to whipped cream, pharmaceuticals, syringes, mercury-containing devices and other toxic, corrosive or flammable products. The start date of the new levies was set when the program came into effect two years ago and by coincidence fell on the same day as the HST launch, Harper Sevonty said.

(…). However, Harper Sevonty stressed that the fees aren’t a tax. “They are the program cost to collect and manage this material out of the waste stream,” she said.
The companies that produce the goods are being charged a levy, which pays for the hazardous waste to be properly recycled instead of being dumped into landfills. It’s up to the manufacturers and retailers whether to download the charge onto customers, she said. At Queen’s Park, Environment Minister John Gerretsen defended the recycling fees as “the right thing to do.” “It’s not a tax. The government does not see one penny of it. It all goes to the stewardship councils to make sure that all of these materials do not end up in our landfill sites,” the minister said.

Yadda, yadda, all sound and righteous fury coming from the environmental fascists aside, if it’s not a tax; why is this fee coerced out of my pocket book via government regulation Ontario? I really don’t care which branch of a governmental organization/agency gets the levies thieved from my pocket. Personally, the only thing left that I can do is hold out a faint hope there is a special place in hell reserved for McGinty. Until then, the provincial motto needs to be changed from ‘Ontario, yours to discover’ to ‘Ontario, McGinty’s to punder’

This program is going to be another one of those stupid government programs which will keep taking money out of my pocket like a open sucking chest wound. Let me give you a hint as to why. The nearest station to where I live in downtown Toronto isn’t serviced by public transit and is a 51 minute hour walk away according to google maps. Has anyone worked out the environment footprint left by those who drive out (times the number of households 60-100,000?) in the downtown core to these Orange Drop sites? Just sayin’.

I can’t speak for other Ontario cities, but here, in the Centre of the Universe, we already pay for waste disposal under municipal taxes. Then of course, who knew the plastic bottle I bought my dish soap in isn’t to be put into the blue box program but taken to an orange drop? I fully expect someone to tell me I can still put my plastic soap container into the blue box program but I would just like to point out; why pray tell then is there an eco ‘fee’ put on the purchase of the bottle? A tax by any other name is still a tax.