Waste commissions across the province, including in Westlock, could be caught footing the bill to recycle used oil.
The Alberta Use Oil Management Association (AUOMA) has decided to reduce the recycling refund (Recycling Incentive) it pays for the collection and processing of used oil in order to balance its budget.
“Because of that, we will now have to start paying some of those fees in order to have disposal of the used oil and containers to our proper distributors, instead of getting it for no charge,” said Tom Moore, Westlock Regional Waste Management Commission manager. “It’s coming back to us because here at the landfill we handle used oil, used oil filters.”
Moore said he had to add another $1,000 to the 2018 budget to absorb that cost but that number was what he called a “shot in the dark.”
The waste commission, and in turn local municipalities, could be hit with an ever-higher cost for disposal, and if collection sites are closed at municipal landfills like the Westlock Regional Landfill, there is more of a chance that people will dump oil in the ditches or down drains.
The Town of Westlock and Village of Clyde councils have sent letters to the local MLA and Alberta Environment minister asking to open up regulations to amend and adapt the fee to the market price of those oil products.
The waste commission also sent a letter to the Environment minister this September to no response.
“What’s sad is that the Government of Alberta was one of the first to implement a lot of these programs, so when you buy a quart of oil or a litre of oil, there’s a little bit of an environmental fee in there and that goes to the cost of helping dispose of the recycled materials afterwards — the used oil, the filters, and the containers,” Moore said.
He explained that back in the late 1990s, the Alberta government instituted recycling programs for used oil, electronics, paint and tires.
At that time, prices for recycled materials were set and the province mandated arms-length non-profit groups like the AUOMA to manage and distribute the collected money — Environmental Handling Charges (EHCs) — as recycling incentives (RI).
So when trucking companies come to pick up used oil from the Westlock Regional Landfill, Moore doesn’t see the bill as it goes directly to the company who are paid through the recycling incentive.
The issue that AUOMA is having is that EHC charged on oil materials, such as oil changes, oil filters and oil at the till, hasn’t changed in 20 years. Although the price of those products has gone up with inflation, the EHC has not — and can’t because it is provincially regulated.
As a result, AUOMA plans to reduce what it pays to those collectors and processors by 15 per cent Jan. 1, 2018.
AUOMA executive director Jodi Tomchyshyn London said what they would like to see is the fees come out of regulation, so when the price of oil is high, the EHCs on oil are low, because there’s a market value for that material. When the market is low, EHCs would be slightly higher to ensure that used oil material gets recycled.
“What we’re hoping to do is get the fees out of regulation and allow those fees to be modulated with the market reality, including the value of the material itself,” she said. “When the material becomes more valuable, we should be able to lower those fees. When the material is less valuable, like it is now when markets are depressed, then we need to raise those fees a little bit.”
She explained that the reason for the recycling incentive reduction was that it was not financially sustainable for AUOMA — 98 per cent of EHC revenue went towards recycling incentives, leaving hardly anything to go into reserves and pay bills.
As a non-profit, the organization can’t go into debt, so by cutting the incentive, the AUOMA could reduce expenses by $1 million and balance its 2018 budget.
“The problem that we’re facing is we’ve been in deficit spending for about a decade, so we used to have a little bit of a reserve,” she said. “We’ve been slowly spending that reserve over the decade, but we’re now down to barebones…We don’t have a choice anymore. We can’t continue to deficit spend and so the board made the tough decision to drop the RI on used oil.”
She said the incentive would remain on oil containers and filters because collectors don’t see a profit on those items. If the incentive were to be cut, those items would stop being collected and recycled.
She said what would make a big difference is charging five cents per litre of container to recycle the container itself, and that price could then be adjusted to inflation.
As a comparison, she pointed out that under the beverage container recycling program there is a regulated deposit but no regulated eco fee, which is charged to the beverage manufacturers — or passed on to the consumer when buying a beverage container. The eco fee is monitored and adjusted on an annual basis based on the market value of the material and size of the container.
“The regulations that exist require that we can only use the fees we collect for the purpose of recycling and operating the programs, so there shouldn’t be concern about the good use of the money we collect,” she assured. “There should be continued and proper oversight. What we would like is the ability to make sure that our program is financially sustainable over the long term.”
Moore said he would also like the government to include antifreeze, washer fluid and fuel additive containers in the program.
“Right now there’s no way of getting rid of those things and they end up getting landfilled,” he said. “Plastic costs me money to get rid of it. If we have a way to get rid of those containers, at least at no cost, that’s a benefit to us for those of us that handle it.”
“On the good side, part of the issue is we’re doing such a good job, more of the materials are coming in so when out have more material, you have more cost. It’s a good program but the actual expenditures and revenue coming in isn’t meeting what’s going out.”
