MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Member for St. John's East.
MR. MURPHY: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
The EPRA was set up by the electronics industry as a non-profit organization designed to pass all recycling costs of their products on to the backs of consumers.
Mr. Speaker, I ask the minister: Why has the government allowed consumers to shoulder all the costs when recycling costs should be shared with the industry?
MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Minister of Environment and Conservation.
SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!
MS SHEA: Mr. Speaker, this Province is serious about waste management. A number of initiatives have happened over the previous years, whether it is our new sites where we bring the waste, it is tire recycling, or it is the hazardous household material such as paints. Now, Mr. Speaker, we have a program for recycling of the electronics.
As I had said the people of the Province of Newfoundland and Labrador now have a program; they can drop off their electronics. If the depot is not available in their place year-round they have an opportunity to do it on an annual basis, Mr. Speaker.
When we look at the recycling of materials, whether it is the collection, the storage, the transportation, and the recycling, Mr. Speaker, there is a cost to that. The cost has been passed on to the consumer.
SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!
MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Member for St. John's East.
MR. MURPHY:Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Here we have a situation where the electronics industry has been put in charge of the electronics recycling problem. We are after putting the fox in charge of the henhouse here.
I ask the minister: How could government determine that this program is going to work?
SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!
MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Minister of Environment and Conservation.
SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!
MS SHEA: Mr. Speaker, we could have asked the industry to take responsibility of the recycling and hide it in their prices. This government chose to make sure that the cost was transparent to the consumers of Newfoundland and Labrador so that they could see the cost.
We could have just simply asked the industry to take the cost, hide it into the price of their electronics so that the consumer would never know what was happening. We did not think that was appropriate for the consumers of this Province.