Ontario Tire Stewardship to end operations next year

TORONTO—Glen Murray, Ontario minister of the environment and climate change, has asked Ontario Tire Stewardship to submit a plan to terminate OTS's operations by the end of 2018.

Murray sent a letter to OTS Feb. 17, directing it to submit its termination plan to the Ontario Resource Productivity and Recovery Authority by Oct. 31.

Industry-funded recycling organizations are being phased out in favor of a government-mandated, producer-responsibility system as directed by the Waste-Free Ontario Act passed June 1.

The Ministry of Environment and Climate Change determined that OTS would be the first of the industry-funded organizations to cease operations, according to a statement issued by Murray.

"The wind-up plan must provide transparent and clear communications to the public and affected stakeholders," Murray said. "It must also deal with assets, liabilities, rights and obligations in a fair, open and transparent process.

"Additionally, it must also avoid disruption in the operation of the Used Tires Program and not adversely affect Ontario's tire marketplace," he said.

OTS plans to sit down with RPRA officials within the next few weeks to share preliminary cessation plans, according to Glenn Maidment, president of the Tire and Rubber Association of Canada.

TRAC also has created a new company, eTracks Tire Management Systems, to aid TRAC and OTS members during the transition, Maidment said. TRAC will issue more information about eTracks shortly, he said.

The transition is still in its early days, according to OTS Executive Director Andrew Horsman. OTS has little insight into it, he said, because the Waste-Free Ontario Act specifically prohibits the organization from being involved in the creation of the new entity.

"Additionally, the government has not passed the regulation designating tires under the Resource Recovery and Circular Economy Act," Horsman said. "The government has indicated that the reg is not likely to be forthcoming until the summer."

One of the most important issues in the transition to the new system, according to Maidment, is the disposition of confidential business data OTS members submitted to the stewardship. This was a major point of discussion at the 2016 Rubber Recycling Conference co-sponsored by TRAC and held in Niagara Falls, Ontario, Oct. 5-6.

"So far there has been no resolution, except that OTS may not sell that data, and the data must go to the new authority," Maidment said. "They need that data to audit and verify the scrap tire supply within the marketplace.

"I think we're all on the same page," Maidment said about the data issue. "No one wants proprietary and confidential information to be disseminated, and at the same time no one wants to keep important information from the public. There should be a way to scrub that data so that they don't divulge any secrets."

The biggest question, according to Horsman, is how the data will be provided to inform decision making among tire makers in the new system.

"Nailing this will be part of the wind-up plan, and we will have to consult with the businesses that provided that data to make sure they are comfortable with the approach," he said.