Stewardship Report

The Beer Store (TBS) has released Responsible Stewardship 2010-2011 – Setting the Standard in Materials Management, its annual packaging stewardship report detailing the packaging diversion performance of TBS’s deposit return system for beer containers and the Ontario Deposit Return Program (ODRP) for wine and spirit containers.

As the single largest collection system for consumer packaging in Canada, The Beer Store has once again set a global benchmark for the collection, reuse and recycling of beer packaging. Cheers, Ontario, for doing your part!

For the 12-month period ending April 30, 2011, the following environmental landmarks were achieved:

• 2.06 billion beverage alcohol containers collected – equivalent to 91 per cent of all beverage alcohol containers sold in Ontario;
• 1.78 billion beer containers collected (glass and PET bottles, cans and kegs), for a remarkable 94 per cent overall return rate; 
• Almost all (99.8%) refillable glass beer bottles returned. These bottles are used an average of 12 – 15 times before being recycled into new glass bottles – enabling brewers to sell over 1.17 billion beer servings in Ontario in 2010-11 while only producing 93 million bottles; 
• 97 per cent of non-refillable beer bottles recovered, representing a six percentage point increase from last year and a twelve point increase since 2004-05; 
• 80 per cent of aluminum cans recovered, representing a 13 percentage point increase since 2004-05; 
• The ODRP’s recovery rate continued to climb, collecting 77.5 per cent of all wine and spirit containers sold – including the billionth container collected in December 2010; and 
• Large glass wine and spirit bottles (over 630 mL), representing over half of all ODRP containers sold, were collected at an impressive rate of 87 per cent.

Combined, TBS’ beer container recovery program and the ODRP successfully:

• Diverted approximately 485,000 tonnes of beverage alcohol packaging from Ontario landfills;
• Saved 2.9 million gigajoules of energy – equivalent to over 494,951 barrels of oil with a cost of over $44.5 million; and
• Avoided almost 200,000 tonnes of GHG emissions – equivalent to taking about 38,940 cars off the road

“The packaging TBS was able to divert from Ontario’s landfills is more than half the residential waste diverted by Ontario’s entire Blue Box system each year,” noted Ted Moroz, The Beer Store President. “Taken together, these programs represent the largest beverage container diversion program in Canada and are estimated to save municipal taxpayers $40 million annually in waste management costs.”

Setting the Standard in Materials Management also highlights how TBS’ approach to packaging stewardship exemplifies many of the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development’s (OECD) key attributes for materials management success.

“The Beer Store’s waste diversion results are outstanding,” said Ontario Environment Minister Jim Bradley. “Waste diversion is good for our environment and our economy. The Beer Store’s efforts mean more glass is recycled into new products like new bottles and fiberglass insulation rather than taking up valuable landfill space,” he said.

“The Beer Store is extremely proud of these results and the continued improvement they show,” noted Moroz. “We set very high standards when it comes to materials management, but these results would not be possible without the dedication of Ontarians, who take the time to return their empty beer, wine and spirit containers to The Beer Store and the hard working TBS team, who diligently process all of these returns,” added Moroz.

The release of this year's report marks the ninth consecutive year that TBS has publicly reported on the performance of its world-renowned deposit return based packaging management system for beer containers and the fourth year it has reported on the results of the Ontario Deposit Return Program (ODRP) for wine and spirit containers sold by LCBO, winery and distillery retail stores.