Ontario's Toxics Reduction Legislation

Newsletter ID: Bulletin, 2010.
Services: Environmental Air & Noise

Two pieces of legislation which will have a significant effect on Ontario manufacturers, the Toxics Reduction Act (“Act’) and Ontario Regulation 455/09 under the Act (“O. Reg. 455/09”) came into force on January 1, 2010. This legislation will require companies to:

undertake toxic substance accounting
prepare a toxic substance reduction plan
report to the public and the government.

The purpose of the Act is to reduce the use, creation and release of toxic substances through mandatory reporting and voluntary reduction. While this may sound like another onerous piece of legislation to an already financially challenged sector of our economy, history in other jurisdictions has shown that early implementation of technologically and financially feasible toxic use reduction opportunities can make good business sense.

The Act applies to most of the larger Ontario Manufacturers that have NAICS codes starting with 31 to 33, plus mining and quarrying companies whose NAICS code starts with 212 and use chemicals to extract, refine or concentrate ores.

In addition to these companies, however, the Act also states “The owner and the operator of a facility shall ensure that a toxic substance reduction plan is prepared ....”. This means that building owners and property managers acting on the owners behalf also have a duty to ensure that their industrial, mining or quarrying tenants prepare a plan.

[Pinchin Environmental regularly hosts Complimentary "Toxics Reduction Act" (TRA) Breakfast Sessions for owners and senior managers to gain an understanding of when and how the regulations under this Act impact their organization.]

Toxic substance reduction planning and reporting is required if a company has one of the above listed NAICS codes, manufactures, processes or otherwise uses one of the defined toxic substances (MPOs) and generally have 10 or more employees. (It should be noted that some defined activities do not have an employee threshold.)

By design, the Act mirrors the federal National Pollutant Release Inventory’s MPO and release thresholds.

The Act is being phased in over the next 2 years. In 2010, 47 toxic substances must be “monitored” and if the MPO and employee thresholds are satisfied, the company must prepare and submit a report to the government by June 2011 and prepare a Plan and report to the government and public by Dec 31, 2011. In 2012, over 300 more toxic substances will be added to the list of subject chemicals with reporting the year after.

If a company is required to report it will be necessary to document in detail the manufacturing processes and processing steps where the toxic substances are used, created, released or transferred off-site. This will involve a detailed analysis of the industrial process, material flows and waste streams. Once the material balances are known it is necessary to identify potential toxic substance reduction opportunities and evaluate their technological and financial feasibility.

A few toxic substance reduction opportunities will be in the form of:

toxic substance substitution (replacing one toxic substance for a less or non-toxic substance)
equipment redesign or product reformulation (adjust the product mix so less toxic is needed)
moving to higher efficiency spray and coatings applications

At Pinchin, we are fortunate to be able to utilize the expertise of our various service groups to assess worker exposure to toxics, compare the toxicity of chemicals and to evaluate the chemical and mechanical reaction kinetics of processes.

Reporting will be to the public and government. Interesting to note in the Act, is that, while the implementation of toxic substance reduction is not mandatory, if one chooses to not reduce, the regulation requires that the site must disclose to the public why such a reduction is not feasible. (There will of course be many operations where substantial reduction is not feasible such as where one of the listed chemicals is incorporated into the finished product and no substitute has been identified.)

Plans and reports must be signed and certified by the highest ranking person at the facility AND by a Planner with qualifications that will be prescribed by an amendment to O. Reg. 455/10.

The MOE predicts that about 1,100 facilities will need to report next year with an additional 1,300 thereafter. Pinchin has been very active with this initiative and we are very well positioned to be one of Ontario’s leaders.

Contact Pinchin Environmental

For more information, please contact Phil Girard, P. Eng., by selecting "Toxics Reduction" under the "Environmental Air & Noise" heading on our Email Contact Form, or by calling 905-363-1324.

Toxics Reduction Act Breakfast Session

Our Complimentary "Toxics Reduction Act" Breakfast Session is intended for owners and senior managers to gain an understanding of when and how the regulations under this Act impact their organization. Pinchin is presenting this complimentary information session to clients and prospects as a means of keeping you informed of the critical compliance initiatives you need to be aware of.

You will find complete details and registration on our Toxics Reduction Act Breakfast web page.