The European Union’s landmark Single-Use Plastic (SUP) Directive is set to be enacted into member states’ national laws by 2021. Some countries outside the EU have already signaled their intention, in all but name, to adopt consistent SUP laws, for good commercial and regulatory reasons. Confidence in the EU as the world’s standard bearers on environmental management, including product environmental regulatory matters, is in its ascendancy, particularly with initiatives such as the Circular Economy…
There has certainly been rapid growth in the market for electric vehicles (EV), in part due to their associated (and celebrated) environmental attributes. What receives much less attention, however, is the looming waste-management challenge, particularly for EV lithium-ion batteries (LIBs). The proliferation of post-consumer LIBs has yet to fully materialize given the recent installation of long-life LIBs across multiple vehicle industries, but the environmental price for the switch to EV will soon be paid by…
After the uncertain rise and precipitous fall of a number of Canada’s energy-from-waste (EfW) industries, it may have been easy to underestimate the commercial opportunities for renewable natural gas (RNG). After all, the corporate community lost much of its interest in capital intensive and technologically uncertain EfW projects at some point following the 2008 crash. With a few notable exceptions, EfW became a local, and mostly municipal, waste management issue, usually undertaken on a small scale. …
The numbers speak for themselves – construction, along with renovation and demolition (CRD) waste has long been one of the largest waste streams in Canada (e.g. wood, asphalt roofing, drywall, etc). Further, unlike waste streams of similar size such as municipal solid waste and organics/food waste, CRD waste has been relatively untouched by regulation in either its generation or its disposal. This appears about to change. CAP Required EPR for CRD Wastes by 2017…
With some important recent developments, the battery industries and their resource recovery partners have taken significant steps in preparing for the coming individual producer responsibility (IPR) circular economy laws. More specifically, Ontario’s Resource Recovery and Circular Economy Act will impose regulated IPR obligations upon makers, brand owners and first importers of a range of small and large size batteries as of June 30, 2020. Clearly, the time for needed industry-wide structural adjustments to meet this…
Jonathan Cocker will be speaking at a panel on Compliance in a Circular Economy at the ICPHSO 2019 International Symposium: Trinity College, Dublin, Ireland
Jonathan Cocker’s abstract on North America’s first circular economy law was accepted by the Yale University Journal of Industrial Ecology’s special issue on Material Efficiency for Climate Change Mitigation.
The Canadian Biogas Association (CBA) has recently released a new proposed standard, the Canadian Anaerobic Digestion (AD) Guideline, with a “view to assist[ing] stakeholders in siting, design, approval, and operations of AD facilities that process food and other organic waste materials in Canada.” The timing for the release of the new standard, with comments due September 11, 2019, could not be more opportune. AD as Regulatory Strategy AD has long been one of the few…
Jonathan Cocker’s legal report, “Canada First: North America Adopts Circular Economy Laws” was recently published in Detritus: Multidisciplinary Journal for Waste Resources & Residues, Volume 6, June 2019. To access the full article, click here.
This week is Baker & McKenzie’s annual International Environmental Conference in Chicago, Illinois on June 19-21, 2019. Jonathan Cocker is moderating the panel, “Understanding the Scope of the Circular Economy Dilemma – The Global Plastics Challenge”. The panelists include Tim Carey (PepsiCo), Mario Facio (B&M – Mexico City), Renata Amaral (B&M – Sao Paulo), Pascal Mallien (B&M – Antwerp), Doug Sanders (B&M – Chicago). The panel will discuss a high level overview of circular economy…