Ever hear of an “eco-fee”? Neither had most consumers in Toronto, where the charge for recycling products like dish soap, batteries, and fire extinguishers quietly began appearing on some supermarket bills July 1.
If you look on your cash-register receipt, the item “ECOFEE” might even be mistaken for a Starbucks item.
The eco-fee has been called a “tax grab,” but it’s not a tax, insist Ontario provincial government officials. Stewardship Ontario, the industry group set up to oversee mandated recycling programs, says the “eco-fees” are neither mandatory or a tax. Retailers have the option to pass the fees they must pay to Stewardship Ontario to safely recycle many products along to consumers, and many have, on hundreds of products ranging from pharmaceuticals and whipped cream to fire extinguishers.
You can be pretty sure that environmentally conscious cities like San Francisco and Seattle are paying close attention to all this.
One thing most people agree on is that consumers didn’t get adequate warning that these fees might begin appearing on their shopping bills before they quietly came ino effect and appeared July 1.
Some Conservative politicians have called it a tax grab, but the Toronto Star is reporting that Stewardship Ontario is urging companies to bury eco-fees in a product’s price so consumers are “none the wiser.” Stewardship Ontario denies this, saying of the “media firestorm” that “the fees are a cost of doing business,” and the eco-fee may be reflected either in the product’s sticker price or itemized in the checkout receipt.”
None of the fees, the group says, go to Stewardship Ontario or to the government. Provincial Environment Minister John Gerretsen says the recycling fees are not a “tax grab.”
“We’ve allowed them a fee for recycling these products if the retailer wants to charge it,” he explains. “Sometimes the retailer charges it, sometimes they don’t.”
Stewardship Ontario denies it’s quietly urged retailers to put the mandated recycling fees in the sticker price so the consumer is none the wiser.
The nation’s largest-circulation newspaper, the Toronto Star, editorialized about the eco-fee uproar, calling eco-fees a “laudable program,” but adding, “The problem is, the public wasn’t told about it in advance.” It added the fee was rolled out in a “clumsy fashion”: by the government and Stewardship Ontario. (The latter industry group ran newspaper ads as part of a $2.5 million educational campaign — but never mentioned the new fees. )
Products charged the Ontario eco-fee
–all aerosol containers, from hairspray to paint
–rechargeable batteries
–household bleaches, drain cleaners and detergents
–pharmaceuticals for humans AND pets, including prescription meds, OTC drugs, and natural health products
–fluorescent tubes, bulbs
–fire extinguishers