The Facts About The Ontario Deposit Return Program

TORONTO, Jan. 9, 2014  /CNW/ - Ted Moroz, President of The Beer Store, issued the following statement about Ontario's bottle return program:

"The Beer Store's award winning bottle-return program, which includes the Ontario Deposit Return Program (ODRP) for LCBO wine and spirit bottles, is the most successful container recycling program in North America. 92 per cent of the 2.3 billion alcohol containers sold in Ontario each year are recovered, reused and recycled.  By recycling more than half of what the Blue Box recycles the Beer Store deposit system is central to Ontario's waste reduction effort.

The ODRP handling fee paid to the Beer Store covers the cost of collecting, transporting and recycling more than 300 million LCBO bottles every year and is less than half the similar fee charged in British Columbia. The Beer Store was selected by the Ontario government to operate ODRP because it would have cost taxpayers significantly more to renovate more than 640 LCBO stores to create a parallel system.  Piggy backing the recovery of LCBO containers on the existing Beer Store system of beer container recovery was the most cost effective solution.  By recycling LCBO containers through the Beer Store municipal taxpayers now avoid $40 million in waste management costs annually which is far greater than program's total operating cost. And the program works. It has more than doubled its key performance target of recycling an additional 25,000 tonnes of glass annually."

SOURCE: The Beer Store

Jay Armitage, FleishmanHillard, [email protected], 416-645-8174