The Environmental Handling Charge (EHC) is the mechanism that funds the provincial UOMA across Canada. This is the financial end of our recycling program.

Here’s how it works.

The EHC is the levy charged by first sellers and Original Equipment Manufacturers (OEM) on all oil fluid, oil containers and oil filters either sold to customers or used in initial fills of new equipment. This applies across all seven provincial associations.

Six of seven associations also receive the EHC levied on automotive antifreeze fluid and containers. Alberta currently doesn’t include antifreeze in its program. Saskatchewan is the only province where the EHC is collected on Diesel Exhaust Fluid containers. And aerosol containers are EHC applicable products in Quebec, New Brunswick and Prince Edward Island.

To keep it simple, the current lists, effective January 2015, for both EHC applicable products and OEM applicable equipment, are on our website at www.usedoilrecycling.com. Click on Members. You’ll find the lists on the right hand side.

Compliance reviews are important.

We’re required to conduct EHC compliance reviews with all our registered members. In western Canada, for example, a member will undergo an EHC compliance review once every four years, three years for a few large remitters. So applicable product sales by one-fourth of the membership is reviewed annually by an independent, third party reviewer on contract with all UOMA. SOGHU members are required by provincial legislation to also undertake a financial audit as part of the process, so run mostly their own compliance reviews.. Reviews may be undertaken more often for some members, if there is difficulty in obtaining accurate sales data during a particular review. The compliance reviews are subject to strict confidentiality between UOMA and each member. For regional and national companies, which represents the majority of members, the review is done once for the entire company to include all provinces in which they are members.

On-line paperwork makes EHC remittance easy.

No one enjoys paperwork but it’s necessary in business. We have the EHC Remittance Form on-line for members. The form permits easy input of materials collected, the sum of EHC to be submitted easily tallied and a final total owing to each provincial UOMA. EHC forms are submitted quarterly, monthly or, for small EHC contributors, annually.

We are continually looking at how we can make the business of recycling easier for our members and various stakeholders.