Glass

Two separate funds have supported Stewardship Ontario’s glass market-development activities: 

Glass Market Development Investment Fund ($2 million) - Unical

In 2005, Stewardship Ontario, in conjunction with participating municipalities (Toronto, Hamilton and Guelph and the regions of York, Peel and Durham), solicited bids from glass recycling companies to process the estimated 60,000 tonnes of glass collected annually.

After a competitive tender process, Unical Inc. of Longueuil, Quebec was selected and negotiations between Unical and Stewardship Ontario and between Unical and participating municipalities were conducted.

In mid-2009, Unical began processing glass from four municipalities (Toronto, Peel, Durham and Hamilton)at a new recycling plant in Brampton. However, this plant was forced to close in 2010. Due to the launch of the Ontario Deposit Return Program for LCBO wine and spirits containers, the plant was not able to secure the volume of Blue Box glass envisioned in its original business plan.

While this was unfortunate, the improved price for Blue Box glass that was achieved while the plant was
in operation enabled Stewardship Ontario to recoup its investment in the form of reduced costs and reduced
steward fees for Blue Box glass. Stewardshio Ontario also learned some important lessons through this business
venture – primarily, how critical it is to secure suffi cient volume and through-put in order to make local recycling
supply chains fi nancially viable.

Glass Diversion Fund ($500,000)

This fund was established to support activities that diverted mixed residential glass from Ontario’s landfills and lower end-use applications into stable, higher value long-term uses. Since its inception in mid-2004, the fund has supported seven projects, ranging from projects to enable the processing of mixed broken glass, and stimulate demand for its use, to evaluations of its ability to serve as a substitute for conventional products.