by Tom Rakocevic
Downsview resident and Downsview Advocate contributor Howard Moscoe served 31 years on Toronto’s City Council. He often made the news in his relentless pursuit of better consumer rights, and generally proved his point through humour and gimmicks that shamed the establishment. Many of his wins we take for granted today such as access to washroom facilities in retail stores and the existence of bus transfers. He even famously forced the king of Saudi Arabia to pay a bill owed to the CNE for space rental.
Howard’s story below is merely one of the thousands that described his tenure, showing the sense of fun and adventure he brought to battle when fighting giants. It also shows that even fighters like Howard can’t always win them all…even when they are right..
n the spring of 1990 Howard had just returned from a trip to New York State where he was visiting his daughter. One thing Howard noticed on his trip was the lack of beverage container waste around the streets and parks. The secret was that pop cans are refundable in New York (just like beer bottles are here).
The stuff that wasn’t returned and was littered was generally picked up by others looking to make easy change. Of course, there is government legislation in place there to require this since we all know corporations don’t generally do these things without being forced to.
On Environment Day May 1, 1990, Howard decided to try and make pop cans refundable here too.
It may come as a surprise, but the soft drink industry was actually a big supporter of the blue box program. Instead of pop companies having to recollect and re-use expensive glass bottles, they could simply produce aluminum cans and let municipalities figure out ways to get rid of them.
The industry pointed out that recycling aluminum was cost efficient as each ton of reclaimed material sold for $1500.
In 1990, as Howard was gearing up for his new fight, soft drink company lobbyists were pushing the government to loosen their refillable glass bottle sale requirements from 30% to 20% of total product on the shelf.
To demonstrate just how much pop cans ended up as Toronto litter, Howard put up a map of Toronto in his office and he, his wife Gloria, and his Executive Assistant Ben each randomly fired a dart at it. They struck the areas of Yonge and Sheppard, Weston and Eglinton, and Kingston and Midland.
Next, the team, joined by Gloria’s friend Sheila, headed to each area and collected as much pop can litter as they could find along roads, sidewalks and green space within 25 minutes of search and recovery time.
The total: 377 pop cans.
Howard then placed the cans in boxes wrapped with garbage bags and decorated them with a shiny silver bow.
He held a press conference at City Hall where he discussed the litter problem and pointed to research showing around only 2% of pop cans at the time ended up in blue boxes. He presented the gift-mess to Ontario’s Minister of the Environment Jim Bradley.
Howard then took the fight to Metro Council (this was before amalgamation) where he won a motion that called on the province to institute a model similar to New York State that made the soft drink industry responsible for refunding costs for recovered cans.
Howard stated “Those responsible for producing today’s excess packaging are those who must ultimately accept responsibility for its disposal.”
This recommendation generated attention but was not implemented. A year later, in May 1991, Coca Cola announced they were moving from aluminum to steel cans. Remember the $1500/ton value of recycled aluminum? With a value of only $70 per ton of recycled steel, Ontario municipalities were estimated to lose $30 million a year.
Howard was infuriated. He, Ben, and his Administrative Assistant Irene each bought one Coca Cola share and showed up to Coke’s annual shareholder meeting held in downtown Toronto.
Howard’s team brought bags of pop can litter and dumped them all over the floor of the meeting. The effect was to turn a normally boring half hour meeting into a two-hour extravaganza.
Howard reminded the president that the soft can industry rationalized the move from bottles to cans based on the valuable cost of recycled aluminum.
The president’s answer: “We’re not in the business to subsidize all other products that go into the blue box.”
Now isn’t that refreshing? Todayw, the soft drink industry is moving towards plastic bottles which generate even less money in recycling resale.
Talking about it today, Howard shrugs, “Coca Cola always wins in the end. They own the bottom line.”
“Oh, and by the way, I hear that New York State residents are still refunded when they return their cans.”