April 16, 2015 

Dear Ontario Paint Steward,

This notice contains important information about the exit process for paints and coatings stewards joining Product Care Association and the steps stewards must take before exiting Stewardship Ontario's program:

1. Steward Reporting and Payment schedule
2. Stewards in 'Good Standing' - requirements you need to fulfill before exiting
3. Steward Invoices - Stewardship Ontario will estimate material management costs incurred prior to June 30^th  and will apply these costs to your Q2 and Q3 invoices
4. Information on how the Annual True Up (ATU) for 2015 will be calculated.

Further to our communication on March 25 regarding the effective date of the paints and coatings Industry Stewardship Plan (ISP) being June 30, 2015, we wanted to provide more details on the exit process and the requirements that must be fulfilled before stewards can leave Stewardship Ontario and join the Product Care Association (PCA) ISP for paints and coatings.

1.     Reporting and Payment Schedule:
 

As the following tables illustrate, exiting paints and coatings stewards will need to submit their Q2 and Q3 reports and pay their Q2 and Q3 invoices by the specified due dates. Stewardship Ontario will provide regular reports to the WDO on the 'good standing' status of the paints and coatings stewards as we proceed through the transition period.

Adjustments:

Please note that you have until July 31, 2015, to request an adjustment for paints and coatings reports for the period up to the June 30, 2015, ISP effective date.

2.     Stewards in Good Standing:
  

Stewards joining PCA's ISP need to be in good standing with Stewardship Ontario. 'Good standing' means that each exiting steward's reporting and payment obligations due dates are met.

Throughout the transition process, Stewardship Ontario must regularly report to Waste Diversion Ontario (WDO) on the status of exiting stewards. These checkpoints include:

All exiting stewards will be able to register on the PCA portal from the end of April. Any stewards that are unsure whether they are in good standing can call Stewardship Ontario's Steward Services department on 1-888-980-9549 or email [email protected].

3.     Invoicing - Estimating Pre-June 30th Costs
 

Material management costs incurred to manage paints and coatings up to June 30^th will be addressed before paint stewards transition to PCA's program.  Given that service providers will not be submitting their invoices until after June 30^th, Stewardship Ontario will estimate those costs and apply them to stewards' Q2 and Q3 invoices -- thereby alleviating exiting paint stewards from having to submit Q4 reports and pay Q4 invoices. Any discrepancy between the actual costs incurred and the estimated costs included in the Q2 and Q3 invoices will be reflected in the 2015 Annual True Up.

These costs will reflect:

• Material management costs that will be received after the ISP effective date
• Ongoing administrative costs to process service provider reports and invoices, and manage payments from stewards and payments to service providers and municipalities.
   

4.     2015 Annual True Up (ATU) - Process, Timings, and Requirements of Exiting Stewards:
 

In Q2, 2016, Stewardship Ontario will calculate and issue the 2015 ATU invoices for all MHSW materials.

For the paints and coatings materials, the previous four quarters of sales data (prior to the ISP effective date) will be used for the ATU. All stewards who reported in the paints and coatings category in 2015 will have an ATU for that material included in the overall MHSW ATU credit/debit. As usual, the quarterly volatility experienced throughout the year will be reconciled through the ATU process.

To ensure we are able to fairly calculate the ATU for paint stewards, we need four quarters of data on the amount of paints and coatings supplied.  The steward reports for 2015 will provide us with three quarters of information, reflecting material management up to the effective date of the ISP (i.e., Q1, Q2 and Q3 Reports). Rather than burden exiting stewards with submitting a Q4 report after the ISP effective date, Stewardship Ontario will use the data from Q4 2014 for the 2015 ATU calculation. The use of Q4 2014 data ensures that the final 2015 ATU calculation for the paint program prior to the ISP effective date reflects the four quarters' sales data prior to the effective date. 

ATU credits and debits for paints and coatings will be issued in April 2016 as part of the ATU for all MHSW materials.

As detailed above (in the 'Stewards in Good Standing' section), Stewardship Ontario is required to report to WDO any stewards that are not in 'good standing' following the ATU process.

More information?

Call the Steward Services team at 1-888-980-9549 or email: [email protected]

Kind regards, 

Stewardship Ontario.