With changes to the way the province handles its recycling, municipal leaders hope that fewer items which are thought to be recyclable end up in the waste stream.
At Powell River Regional District’s board meeting on Thursday, June 27, a couple of motions pertaining to expenditures for recycling were discussed.
Colin Palmer, board chair, indicated that one peculiarity of the regional recycling program is that the designated Area B depot is the Augusta Recyclers Inc. facility south of town, which is a deal between Augusta and Multi-Material British Columbia (MMBC).
“There is no separate depot,” Palmer said. “ We don’t have anything to do with it but it’s agreed that’s the Area B depot. So if anyone goes to Augusta, they are not Sunshine Coast Disposal Depot personnel looking after it. They are Augusta’s.”
Area B Director Stan Gisborne said one of the changes is that Augusta previously accepted all soft and all hard plastic and now MMBC doesn’t accept a lot of plastic.
Al Radke, the regional district’s chief administrative officer, said the Augusta site only accepts MMBC-approved products. He added that Augusta, of their own volition, decided not to get into any of the recyclables outside of MMBC products.
“That’s why our depots cannot accept any product to funnel to Augusta through a different channel,” Radke said.
Palmer said it is important to contact the minister of environment when there is a full review in three months’ time to deal with this whole issue of acceptable products for recycling. Palmer said the minister and her staff probably do not have the whole picture regarding what is happening.
“At the same time, however, we’ve got to admit that a lot of what was being returned wasn’t recycled at all,” Palmer said. Some recyclables were either burned or put in the waste stream, which bothers Palmer “a great deal.
“Now we know that everything that goes to MMBC is not only audited by MMBC and Green by Nature, but it is also audited by the province,” Palmer said. “At least you can say to people that the products being returned will actually be recycled. We didn’t know that before.”
Radke said there are more items that can be recycled now than previously. He said many people thought a great job was being done when in fact items were put into the recycling stream that weren’t recyclable at all.
“What was actually happening was some of those items were maybe contaminating the good stuff and that was then diverted to the waste stream and went to landfill anyway,” Radke said. “Some of the products that did make it to the Lower Mainland were not recyclable at all. About 90,000 pounds per day were being diverted from the recyclable stream into an incineration stream.”
He said that one out of the three regional district green bins was being turfed into the waste stream even though it was believed the contents were being recycled.
“There’s too much garbage,” Palmer said. “People were just putting garbage in anyway.”
There is an imperative to have a clean recycling stream. Waste haulers must agree to a contract with MMBC that stipulates $5,000 fines if the contamination in a load is more than three per cent.
Regional directors voted to approve Multi-Material BC collection depot upgrades in the amount of $24,600. They also approved the use of $20,000 of contingency money and $86,300 from the Waste Management Reserve to upgrade the recycling depots and to continue with full staffing at the rural collection depots in 2014.
The regional board also passed a motion to approve the implementation of an additional MMBC depot in town behind the RONA Building Centre for an estimated capital cost of $31,000 and a 2014 operational cost of $56,880. They voted to use a further $75,700 from the Waste Management Reserve to fund construction and operational costs of the new depot in 2014.
Initially, MMBC would not allow the regional district to operate the green bins at the Town Centre Mall and Canada Safeway. Regional district staff approached MMBC with a request for special approval to create a depot within the city. Permission was granted for the regional district to open a collection depot at the mall site.
