The jump in eco fees causes a fuss with Ontario Federation of Agriculture

by Taylor Desjardins

Increased eco fees in Ontario have caused a backlash from the Ontario Federation of Agriculture towards the Ontario Tire Stewardship.

Brad Anger, the vice president of the OFA said they were not made aware of any coming change and were surprised to see how much the fees have increased.

“There will be a huge impact on agriculture, it’s just something else the government is trying to shove down our throat with no valid notification,” said Anger. “If you change a tire on a combine, that fee would amount to $1,800 and each tire is $5,000.”

Jake Cottingham from Cottingham Tire in Tilbury said the eco fee price jump cannot be justified and that they were not notified of the change in advance either.

“It’s a huge jump and I think if you can recycle a truck tire which has a lot more steel to work out of it for $15, why can’t you recycle a farm tire for the same price,” said Cottingham.

According to a letter distributed by OTS, before the increase of eco fees for off-road tires were a flat fee of $15.29 each. Now, the new fees are determined by weight. Large off-road tires such as industrial tires would command an eco-fee of $1,311 along with the price it takes to purchase the actual tire.

Andrew Horsman, the executive director at Ontario Tire Stewardship said the government ordered OTS to base the eco fees on what it actually costs to recycle these tires, so charging by weight was what they saw fit.

“This was prompted by a couple of things, the need for us to collect revenue to pay for the recycling of the tires and a new piece of legislation from the government that required us to calculate our fees based on the actual costs,” said Horsman.

The Ontario Federation of Agriculture has made Ontario Tire Stewardship aware of the wear and tear that these off-road tires go through and are working together to revise the fees. Negotiations have been taking place and proposals have been made but not released to the public as of yet. OFA still has to act on the set proposal made by OTS.

“We’ve actually been in discussions with Ontario Federation of Agriculture, intensely for 2 or 3 weeks now and I am pleased to say we have made an agreement in principal with them that is going to allow us to revise how we allocate costs to the Agriculture sector,” said Horsman.