04/22/2015


As communicated to members last Friday, AMO/City of Toronto and Stewardship Ontario (SO) have not been able to agree on the value of the 2015 Steward Obligation for the 2015 payments to municipalities for blue box services.

AMO/City of Toronto and SO made presentations to Waste Diversion Ontario’s (WDO) Board of Directors last week to outline our respective positions.  AMO/City of Toronto have requested that WDO should use the methodology the Arbitrator, Mr. Armstrong, used to decide the 2014 Steward Obligation and that interim funding be provided to municipalities in 2015 while the Steward Obligation is being determined.  

Following the presentations, the WDO Board has directed:

  • AMO/City of Toronto and SO to go through a mediation process to explore all possible options to determine the 2015 Steward Obligation.
  • Stewardship Ontario to start paying municipalities interim 2015 Blue Box funding with the first payment on June 30, 2015, if the final 2015 steward obligation is not determined before then.  Interim 2015 Blue Box funding will be calculated using the arbitrator’s method of determining the 2014 steward obligation.
WDO has requested that the parties select a mediator by April 30 and that a status report from the mediator be provided to WDO by June 1.  

We will continue to provide you with updates as this important issue moves forward.