July 30, 2024

Last week in Boating Industry Canada News Week Digest, we wrote that two “rights” make a “wrong” when boaters are required to carry pyrotechnic distress flares, when flares are a globally accepted emergency alert device but when there isn’t a clear path to recycling these flares when they expire. The emphasis here, is on “clear”.

We wrote that boaters and the industry should both support reinstating the CanBoat / CPS flare collection program by sending a letter to Canada’s Minister of Transportation. Transport Canada used to provide a grant to support the CanBoat / CPS flare collection program giving boaters a clear and agnostic path to recycling flares and at no personal cost, but that funding was cut this year. One of our readers wrote to say that they believe the right path is to lobby the government to recycle these expired distress flares through municipal facilities.

That would be a great and simple solution for us, but we understand that municipal facilities are not permitted to handle explosives, whether that’s distress flares, firearms ammunition, or other hazardous materials. It seems like that route is out.

And, those same restrictions on hazardous materials make shipping options less available and more expensive every year. The manufacturers of these distress flares do provide disposal for their flares on a one-for-one basis, usually through their retail and distributor networks but it’s complicated. Expired flares can start to “weep” chemicals and what they weep is often nitroglycerin. So, it’s “right” to carry flares and it’s “right” to dispose of them properly but it’s “wrong” that the government has not facilitated making safe disposal widely accessible across Canada.

Boating Industry Canada News Week Digest readers know that we have been talking about this situation for several weeks now. What first prompted the discussion was when we learned that Transport Canada had decided not to renew the funding for the distress flare collection and disposal program that has been run through CanBoat / CPS-ECP the Canadian Power and Sail Squadrons in cooperation with CIL Explosives.

It was a very successful program that had been running for a decade and collected some 200,000 expired flares over that time. Funding this program was clearly a “right”. About $100,000 of funding had been provided on an annual basis and that amount mostly covered shipping, 60% of the cost of disposal of flares and other operating costs like insurance.
 
It was certainly right to support CanBoat because as a national volunteer organization operating in both English and French, the many Flare Collection days that CanBoat held, made it much more accessible for Canadians to dispose of their expired flares than any other program.

The beauty of the arrangement between CanBoat and CIL Orion was that CanBoat volunteers would accept reasonable numbers of flares for disposal from any boater, without regard to the brand of flare being returned.

Here’s what we ask you to do: click here to print out the attached letter that is addressed to:

The Honourable Pablo Rodriguez, Minister of Transport.

TC.MinisterofTransport-MinistredesTransports.TC@tc.gc.ca

We need as many industry members and Canadian boaters as possible, to let them know how important this program is and that it should be reinstated as soon as possible. After several weeks of investigation and discussion on the part of this publication, we have not located any other national source for recycling expired distress flares and the problem grows every year.

Our thanks for your support!

Andy Adams – Editor