On the eve of an important city committee meeting, an industry lobby group is claiming that Toronto's push to crack down on fast-food packaging will cost an average Toronto family $400 per year while hurting local businesses and jobs.

"The city's report is completely silent on the economic impacts. It doesn't talk about the costs to consumers and businesses," said Cathy Cirko of the Environment and Plastics Industry Council (EPIC) in a news release issued Tuesday.

"And it avoids identifying what bans and incentives on different plastic food packaging will really cost consumers. But we expect that there will be a lot of noise once small businesses and residents understand what's in store for them."

Toronto wants to divert 70 per cent of solid waste from landfills by 2010. Coun. Glenn De Baeremaeker puts it this way: "Three-hundred-sixty-five million cups a year go in the garbage because the people who are making the cups are making them in a way that we cannot recycle them."

The city's proposals, to be debated Wednesday by city council's public works committee, include the following:

  • Have stores offer a 10-cent discount for customers who bring their own bags and allow plastic grocery bags to be recycled -- while banning those that can't be recycled
  • Banning bottled water at city buildings
  • Make businesses like coffee shop take-outs offer a mandatory 20-cent discount for customers who use their own coffee cups
  • Have fully recyclable coffee cups

Tim Hortons, the takeout coffee giant, has come under particular criticism because the plastic lids for its paper cups would contaminate Toronto's recycling stream.

A 2007 litter audit found that tossed Tim Hortons cups accounted for about 65 per cent of the coffee cups found on Toronto streets.

The company has been lobbying against the city's changes.

Nick Javor of Tim Hortons believes the lid can be recycled if the city changed its recycling system. "Why would we have a cup ban for a piece of packaging that could be recycled if the infrastructure allowed it to be?" he told ctvtoronto.ca.

The city has argued that the capital cost of changing Toronto's recycling system would be $3 million, with an additional $1 million in operating costs.

"That suggests the city needs some investment in new equipment to capture some packaging," Javor said.

Industry funds about half the cost of the blue-box program, "and right now, I'm not getting the service for the fee," he said, adding the city should get funding from other levels of government. "We already pay our share," he said.

Javor listed a number of smaller Ontario cities that accept both paper cups -- although Owen Sound. Toronto has argued many of those cities don't offer public-space recycling and that it is concerned not enough people would remember to pop off the lids. It has also argued the scales are vastly different.

Toronto has an estimated 5,000 outdoor recycling bins and almost 200 Tim Hortons outlets.

Javor noted that the company is rolling out its in-store recycling program, working with Turtle Island Recycling Corp.

Tim Hortons allows its customers the option of a ceramic cup for in-store consumption and a dime off for those who bring in a travel mug, he said.

Javor said the company might consider a fully recyclable lid at some point, "but right now, there's no feasible substitute ... that can meet the safety and snugness of fit" of a plastic coffee cup lid.

With a report from CTV Toronto's Naomi Parness