Water Treatment: From Blue to Green

As products reach their logical end-of-life stage, stewardship, responsible disposal and recycling of product is the next step. Ontario and British Columbia policies are greening on many fronts-energy efficiency and sources, water conservation, waste diversion from landfills and expanded recycling programs. Why shouldn’t the water treatment industry follow suit?

As Canadian jurisdictions start to develop regulations to divert end-of-life products from landfills, member companies of the Canadian Water Quality Association are implementing programs and designations to comply-some are even ahead of the game. Others have stewardship programs in place in other countries that can be adopted here in Canada with some modification. The larger body of players may have to either develop programs themselves or participate in approved industry programs.

On December 8, 2008, the province of British Columbia’s mandated recycling and stewardship program will be expanded to include all plumbing and drinking water treatment products (water purifiers) that are powered by electricity or battery. The legislation supports the province’s goals to divert all waste from landfills and incinerators by 2020, and the program will include all electrical products by July of 2010 and appliances by July of 2012.

The onus and responsibility to comply falls on the “producer,” where producer is defined as the first seller of the product in the province, but which in practice may be the product manufacturer, brand owner, wholesaler or distributor. The producer also could be an importer, broker or retailer that sells the product directly to a consumer (including web sales).

The regulation was designed to be results-based and very flexible for producers to either submit a plan of their own or comply with the province’s prescribed program.

In the last few weeks, similar regulations have started development in Ontario, but with more prescriptive frameworks.

As a result of programs for mercury thermostat recycling or discarding old paint, many people understand the impacts of diverting toxic chemicals from landfills and the environment. But what about more benign elements, such as resins? How do we address those products? Do these stewardship frameworks work for them, too? The issues aren’t clear to the regulators, either. You can bet that questions will arise in the future.

The obvious ones, like recycling UV bulbs or using take-back programs for filters and reverse osmosis membranes, are easy to address. What is understood is that the provinces are chugging along multiple paths that involve strategic commitments on energy efficiency, water conservation and landfill diversion.

The industry must demonstrate that POU/POE water treatment is the consumer’s last line in the multi-barrier approach towards ensuring clean potable water supporting our aging infrastructure. Our technologies are energy efficient and as respective of water conservation issues as possible-as these regulations come into play, we’ll be ready to do our part and comply with the waste diversion needs of the municipalities, provinces and the nation.

Kevin Wong is the executive director of the Canadian Water Quality Association.