The Travel Lodge hotel in Richmond, British Columbia. An ordinary hotel with an ordinary meeting room. White walls, blue carpet, blue chairs. But as ordinary as the setting was that afternoon last September, the topic of the meeting was anything but. Dozens of people crowded into the room, so many that organizers had to push back the coffee and the cookies to make room for more chairs, and crack open a side exit to let in fresh air. People on the manufacturing side, the recycling side, the retail side, the government side and the enviro side were all there to learn about – and give feedback on – a planned program that will do two things at once: Tackle a waste problem, and green the economy.

Here’s how Wayne Edwards put it in his opening remarks for the public consultation. “We’re talking about a complete change in the way people do business,” he said. “We’re putting a stake in the ground. And when we look back at this stake ten years from now, we’ll be looking from a place that’s very different from where we are today.”

Wayne is vice president of the Electrical Equipment Manufacturers Association of Canada (EEMAC). The business change he was referring to? BC’s proposed takeback program for fluorescent lights (tubes and CFLs), which launches province-wide this July.

The program will be the complete responsibility, administratively and financially, of the companies that make the products and put them on the market. Eight of EEMAC’s members (EiKO, GE, Liteline, Osram Sylvania, Panasonic, Philips, Standard and USHIO) have banded together to form a non-profit stewardship agency to oversee and fund this new takeback program. (Actual program management has been contracted out to Product Care, the agency that manages BC’s stewardship programs for paint, pesticides, solvents and gasoline.) Municipalities? Not responsible. As Wayne reminded the audience, this is the first full producer responsibility program for fluorescent lights in the country. (Indeed, in North America.)

One thing I like to point out is that, although these manufacturers needed a regulatory nudge, they’re not fighting it. As one colleague said to me after the meeting, “Ten years ago, industry was throwing their lawyers at some of BC’s first stewardship programs. Now, instead of fighting it, they’re working with it. It makes it a lot easier to roll out a program.”

Companies are recognizing, then, that they can stall or shape their takeback programs. Fortunately, industry associations like EEMAC are stepping in to shape them. Especially in BC, where they have the flexibility to design them their way, provided they meet the environmental targets in the Recycling Regulation.

In future posts, I’ll explore some key features of the program (and, of course, offer my perspective on strengths, and opportunities for further strengthening). For now, I’ll leave you with the sense of possibility I left with that day.

At the end of the meeting, I was chatting with a few other sweet tooths who stayed behind to polish off those frisbee-sized cookies (the ones that got blocked behind all the extra chairs). That’s when an industry rep made this prediction. “In ten years, everybody’s going to be cradle-to-cradle,” he said. “Everybody.”