Date: June 26
Time: 11:00 – 12:15 ET
Location: Zoom (register below)
Join us for PSI’s Annual Meeting of Members and Partners to reflect on major successes and keep the momentum going! We will kick off the meeting with two EPR pioneers who helped plow the ground for EPR in Canada.
This has been a remarkable year for U.S. EPR, with four new EPR programs and five amendments to existing EPR programs enacted (so far!). These achievements include first-in-the-nation programs for EV batteries and boat wrap, the 5th packaging EPR law, another paint law, a significant battery EPR amendment, and another battery EPR bill awaiting signature. In total, we saw bills for 57 new programs and 15 amendments introduced, as well as significant progress towards implementing packaging EPR laws in four states and laws for HHW, gas cylinders, and tires.
To start our meeting, Scott Cassel, PSI’s CEO and Founder, will lead a discussion with Ron Driedger, formerly of the BC Ministry of Environment, and Duncan Bury of Environment Canada and Duncan Bury Consulting. Ron and Duncan played foundational roles in shaping the EPR landscape in Canada. Their achievements and readiness to share their knowledge planted the very seed that resulted in the founding of PSI and were crucial to the expansion of EPR in the U.S. Hear from these seasoned experts about their experiences in early EPR and their insights on the future of the movement.
We will also hear from Abby Boudouris, PSI’s Board President, and Jennifer Semrau, Board Treasurer. Additionally, the entire PSI team will briefly share accomplishments from the past year and goals for fiscal year 2025.
Duncan Bury has a master’s degree from the University of Waterloo, School of Urban and Regional Planning in Ontario and has worked in the environmental stewardship, producer responsibility and waste management and waste diversion fields for over 35 years. At Environment Canada he led files in areas including extended producer responsibility (EPR), electronics, product focused policies such as eco-labelling, and international waste policy through the OECD and the Basel Convention. He also led the development of the Canadian Council of Ministers of the Environment’s (CCME) Canada Wide Action Plan on EPR.
Prior to his years with the federal government he worked in Ontario on the launch of blue box recycling, leaf and yard waste programs and on waste diversion planning. After leaving Environment Canada in 2010 he worked as an environmental, waste management and recycling consultant leading and participating in contracts with provincial and territorial governments and agencies, the federal government and international organizations including the OECD Environment Directorate, the International Joint Commission, Great Lakes Water Quality Board and the UN’s Basel Convention Secretariat.
He re-joined Environment and Climate Change Canada (ECCC) between October 2018 and April 2019 to work on Canada’s zero plastics waste strategy. In 2019 and 2020 he completed a state of play report for CCME and ECCC to facilitate consistent EPR programs for plastic products and edited and contributed to a CCME EPR guidance manual.
He co-founded Extended Producer Responsibility Canada (EPRC), a not for profit association which promoted and reported on the growth of EPR policies, programs and practices across Canada. He is actively engaged with environmental issues in the City of Ottawa and as part of Waste Watch Ottawa is working to advance waste reduction and diversion.
Ron graduated with distinction from the University of Saskatchewan in 1969 with a degree in Civil Engineering. Following two years with a construction company and a consulting engineering firm Ron returned to the University of Saskatchewan for a year in graduate studies in geotechnical engineering.
Ron was employed with the British Columbia Ministry of Environment for thirty years, from 1972 to 2002. From 1989 to 2002 Ron was a Director in Victoria responsible for a wide range of environmental protection issues, including responsibility for the solid waste management, recycling and extended producer responsibility programs. In 1994, the introduction in BC of the Paint Stewardship Regulation was the first of its kind in North America.
Shorty after Ron left the Ministry of Environment in early 2002, he published a paper in the Yale and MIT Journal of Industrial Ecology, entitled, From Cradle to Grave, Extended Producer Responsibility for Household Hazardous Waste in British Columbia. At that time Ron also formed R. Driedger & Associates Ltd. From 2002 to 2014 Ron’s company was involved mainly in recycling, extended producer responsibility and serving as an expert witness in court proceedings.
From early 2003 to 2014, Ron’s main contract was as the Executive Director of the BC Used Oil Management Association. In 2002, the Ministry of Environment passed a Regulation that required the producers of oil, oil containers and filters to take responsibility for the collection and recycling of these materials. In 2013, the Regulation was amended to include antifreeze and antifreeze containers in the program. After a 45-year career Ron retired in 2014, to pursue longer winter holidays in Palm Springs, golf and take up the emerging sport of pickleball.
During his career, Ron served as Vice President of the BC Professional Employees Association, President of the BC & Yukon Chapter of the Solid Waste Association of North America (SWANA), on the Advisory Board at Royal Roads University for environmental programs and as a member of the Fraser Valley Regional District Solid Waste Plan Monitoring Committee. In 2002, at the International SWANA Conference in Long Beach, California, Ron was presented with the Robert Lawrence Distinguished Service Award.
For the most part, Ron can echo the words of Arnold Toynbee who said, the supreme accomplishment in life has been to blur the lines between work and play.
The Team
