Why the Ford government nixed deposit on soft drink cans, bottles [Video]

Ontario has the worst recycling rates in Canada for cans, plastic bottles and cartons of non-alcoholic beverages, with billions of these containers going to landfills and incinerators annually.

But for more than a year, momentum was building toward a key shift to try to improve things. Premier Doug Ford’s government was seriously considering creating a deposit-return system for soft drink containers, a system that’s already in place in eight other provinces and that already exists for beer, wine and spirits in Ontario. 

That momentum began in June 2023, when Ford’s then-minister of the environment, David Piccini, launched a working group to hammer out recommendations for such a system.

The working group included representatives from the beverage, retail and waste management industries, as well as environmental stakeholders and provincial officials. Over the course of a year, its members researched how a deposit-return system could operate, be financially sustainable and achieve better recycling …