Yukoners now know the new prices they may have to pay to recycle certain materials, after the territorial government released a list detailing rates for electronics, electrical products and tires Tuesday.

It comes after the government renewed the process for consultation on amendments to the Designated Materials Regulation in late 2017.

That saw the tire and electronics industries cry foul, saying they had not been consulted prior to the proposed changes.

Those changes from last year were compared in a release issued Tuesday to newer prices that would take effect in October of this year – meaning businesses and industry will have about three months to prepare for them.

Among the drops in prices are:

• semi-truck tires, which will cost about $9 after initially being proposed as $50 last year;

• computers, which will be just under $3 whereas it would have cost $15 in 2017; and

• laptops, which, come October, will cost $2 for recycling, unlike the $10 they would have been.

Among the hikes are:

• big-screen TVs, which will set you back $56 instead of the proposed $30 from last year; and

• microwaves, which will come with a $10.94 recycling charge, unlike the flat $8 fee initially proposed.

The price of recycling car tires will remain the same at $7, assuming they have a rim diameters of about 49.53 centimetres or fewer.

Speciality, industrial and other tires with a rim diameters of at least 20.32 centimetres up to and including 60.98 centimetres will also be $7.

Recreational vehicle tires like those on motorcycles, ATVs, boat trailers and lawn tractors will cost a bit less, at $5.

Martin Lehner, a technician with Tangerine Technology – which was included in the consultations – said the three months’ notice is enough time. The delay itself was not necessary, Lehner added.

“We didn’t get consultation until we – I don’t want to say spoke up, because it was more like yell up,” Lehner told the Star.

“That could’ve all been avoided,” he added.

He is generally happy with the changes this time around, as they seemed better than what was being considered last year, he said.

The public consultation phase lasted from December 2017 to the past February, according to the Yukon government webpage.

It also lists that about 100 people attended in-person workshops with more than 300 responses received from the online survey.

A government webpage says the goal of the changes is to encourage Yukoners to take old tires, electronics and electrical products to recycling depots or landfills rather than leaving them in wild spaces.

The existing rules in the DMR had not been modified since being created in 2003, a December 2017 release noted, so updating the practices and regulations around recycling is something the government said is key going forward.

“Modern recycling is vital to reduce waste in landfills, increase the re-use of resources, and keep our environment clean,” Environment Minister Pauline Frost said in the release.

The manager of one Whitehorse tire shop also said he is glad to finally see the changes.

“This was turning into a ‘let’s see how long we can ignore it until it’s an issue,’” said Rick Copes with Kal Tire, who was at the consultations.

Copes was referring to the process leading up to consultation, but also the act itself, he said.

“We were being listened to, but we’re not really being heard,” he added, noting that meetings were held between officials higher up rather than the actual group that would be carrying out the work.

For instance, he said, he wished he had received more information about how the tires were going to be transported into trucks and how they’d be filed into trailers.

“They didn’t want to be helped in the way we wanted to help them,” Copes continued.

The tire industry could offer simple suggestions, like how to most efficiently pack tires into the back of trucks, he added.

“It felt like a gong-show; we just sat there,” he said.

He likened it to a “trickle-down effect” of requesting numbers and information from people who didn’t work with it on the ground level.

That being said, Copes remained hopeful about the numbers.

“I’m not super-duper worried about it,” he said.

There were some whispers about the costs being a bit higher than other areas, he added – but he understood that the government may have to account for freight and transportation.

“Let’s face it: we’re not B.C.,” he said.

An Environment department webpage said the recycling surcharges are not a tax, adding that “the consumer of a designated material bears the financial responsibility for its end-of-life disposal” rather than the “general taxpayer.”

The fees collected will be used for the recycling of those materials, which includes the collection, transportation and processing costs.

Lehner praised the goal of the surcharges, though he admitted they may not dramatically impact Tangerine’s business.

“They’re at a level where I don’t feel they will affect our sales anyway,” he said.

Copes echoed his sentiment.

“I don’t think changes are enough to cause any real impact,” he said, admitting that “they had everybody really scared” when the government proposed charging $50 for the recycling of semi-truck tires.

As mentioned, that number has been bumped down significantly this time around to $9.

“It’s really good they didn’t go through with that.”

Meanwhile, the official Opposition is grateful the Yukon Liberals released the rates months ahead of the implementation date, even though the process of consultation could have gone more smoothly.

“The biggest concern we heard is it’s going to make them uncompetitive with Alberta and B.C.,” the Yukon Party’s Scott Kent told the Star today, reflecting on some of his party’s consultations with the tire industry especially.

Kent, who serves as the party’s community services critic, added that the government initially seemed to want to “ram through” the changes, after which industry feared there would be significant layoffs to compensate for a lack of competition.

Kent said the three months’ notice is enough time for businesses and industry to prepare for the coming changes, adding that “it could’ve been a lot worse” if the government was “just plowing ahead with a proposal that was previously rejected.”

That spurned proposal came from the previous Yukon Party government, Kent admitted.

Still, he said, it seemed like the government “didn’t roll up their sleeves” – instead opting to “dust off failed proposals.”

Meanwhile, Copes said he doesn’t expect too many ground-level changes at the shop – rather, there will be more administrative changes where he shares information with the head office in B.C.

“I think it could’ve been a lot worse,” Copes said.

“We were worried they’d use crazy, astronomical numbers that wouldn’t be in line” with neighbouring provinces.

Kent said he hopes for “fulsome consultation” if the government looks to add to the list of products that would have a surcharge attached to them.

The price changes announced this week are to take effect Oct. 1.