«   EPR and Bottle Bill Live ♫♪♬Together in Perfect Harmony   ♩ »♬♫

Mario LaquerreDirector, Programs RECYC-QUÉBEC 

Québec’s History

1984 :  Bottle bill on non-refillable beer and soft drink containers

1999 :  Québec adopted the Extended Producer Responsibility (EPR) approach as one of the driving principles for its new residual waste management policy. 

 2004 : Regulation respecting compensation for municipal services provided to recover and reclaim residual materials (EPR on packaging and printed materials)

• Municipal Waste Management (96 % of the population have access to recycling)• Curbside recycling (blue box)• Municipal depots (Drop off)• 80% of curbside recycling is cardboard and paper

• Bottle bills• Beer (refillable)• Beer (non refillable)• Soft drinks

• Away-from-home recycling• A $6,000,000 fund toward a three-year funding program for the recovery of

recyclable materials generated outside the home. A non-profit organization incorporated on June 1, 2007, the Table pour la récupération hors foyer numbers thirteen contributing members, including institutions, associations and private companies

Diversion Approaches in Quebec for containers

• Municipalities are responsible for planning and organizing the collection, as well as implementing sorting services in their territory

• Targeted businesses must compensate municipalities (50%) for the net cost of curbside recycling

• Total paid by enterprises from 2005 to 2009: $189.3M

Diversion Approaches in QuebecMunicipal Curbside Recycling

Goal for 2008  2008Results  

Total (paper, cardboard, glass, metal and plastics) 60% 56%

• Two bills for one-way containers:• Soft drinks managed by an IFO called BGE• Beer managed by RECYC-QUÉBEC

• Producers are responsible for the system deficit (form of EPR)

• 77% of the beer sold in Quebec is in reusable glass containers, with a private deposit

• Every person (stores) who, as part of a retail sales operation, sells beer or soft drinks must accept the return of empty containers and refund the refundable portion of the deposit.(AN ACT RESPECTING THE SALE AND DISTRIBUTION OF BEER AND SOFT DRINKS IN NON-RETURNABLE CONTAINERS (R.S.Q., chapter V-5.001)

Diversion Approaches in QuebecBottle Bills for Non-refillable Containers

• Non-refillable soft drink & beer containers

• Refillable beer containers

Diversion Approaches in QuebecBottle Bills - Results

2009 Results

Metal (Al) 65.5%

Plastic 71.6%

Glass 77.0%

GLOBAL 68.31%

Results

Glass 95 to 98 %

Conclusion

• Why both systems can be complementary:– They target different  locations of consumption;– The end results are very different:  more tonnage for curbside recycling, more recovery (%) for bottle bill;

– Bottle bill can promote reuse.