Authority sets 2019 Blue Box Steward Funding Obligation
The Resource Productivity and Recovery Authority has set the 2019 Blue Box Steward Funding Obligation at $126.4 million. The Blue Box Steward Funding Obligation is the total amount that stewards must pay to municipalities for the Blue Box Program.
To determine the 2019 funding obligation, the Authority considered information obtained from its annual municipal Datacall, which surveys municipalities on costs and amount of materials collected through the Blue Box Program. The following factors were also considered:
- Municipal cost containment to reflect best practices in operating municipal waste diversion programs
- Steward cost containment to represent cost increases stewards have had on the system due to their packaging and product choices
- InKind linage to reflect the share of promotion and education through newspapers using InKind linage attributable to the Blue Box Program
- Non-obligated materials to reflect a portion of the costs to collect materials through the Blue Box Program that are not mandated
- Three-year rolling average revenue to reflect volatile commodity prices
- Prior year adjustments to reflect any errors identified by the Authority in verifying and auditing Datacall information
In setting the 2019 steward funding obligation, the Authority used the 2018 methodology with updated inputs on the following basis:
| 2019 Steward Obligation (2017 data year) | |
|---|---|
| Reported gross cost | $355,134,163 |
| Plus 55% of InKind linage | $2,156,414 |
| Less non-obligated | – $221,770 |
| Less municipal cost containment | – $23,800,135 |
| Total gross cost | $333,268,672 |
| Less three-year average revenue | – $95,697,012 |
| Plus 100% of prior year adjustments | $865,415 |
| Total net costs | $238,437,075 |
| 50% of net costs | $119,218,537 |
| Plus steward cost containment | $7,153,112 |
| 2019 Steward Obligation | $126,371,650 |
Stewardship Ontario will use the 2019 steward obligation as a key component to establish its 2019 budget and 2019 fee schedule, which will be made available to stewards later this fall.
The Authority has directed Stewardship Ontario to commence paying the 2019 obligation to municipalities on schedule on or about June 30, 2019. Details on these payments to municipalities are currently being finalized and will be available on the Authority’s website in the fall.
About the Authority
The Resource Productivity and Recovery Authority is a regulatory body that is mandated by the Government of Ontario and is responsible for providing oversight, compliance and enforcement functions under the Resource Recovery and Circular Economy Act, 2016 and the Waste Diversion Transition Act, 2016. Learn more.
For more information, please contact Wilson Lee at (416) 640-6093 or wlee@rpra.ca.