This week, residents of Richmond were introduced to much talked about new household recycling methods, resulting in a greater amount of materials being collected from blue boxes and carts.
A new yellow bag now allows residents to throw all paper materials together, while a grey bin is to be used for glass containers. Meanwhile, new materials such as aerosol cans, plastic containers and milk cartons will be accepted in blue bins and carts.
But where all those materials end up in order to be recycled has been a bone of contention between the City of Richmond and Multi-Material BC (MMBC), a new residential recycling stewardship program.
As of this week, MMBC now controls where all recyclable materials from residential homes are sent to for processing. The nonprofit, industry-led group chose recycling company Green By Nature in Surrey as its main post-collection processor, meaning greater hauling distances would be required for Richmond's recycling fleet, operated by Sierra Waste Services.
On Thursday, city councillors will be asked to approve an interim fix to the problem at a cost of $320,000 annually until the end of 2017 in addition to a one-time $140,000 start-up cost.
Instead of having every Sierra truck drive to Surrey, the city has agreed to consolidate its recyclables at Urban Impact, a recycling facility in northeast Richmond (and the former post-collection processing site for the city before
MMBC took over.) The city will pay Sierra the lump sum and Sierra will then arrange with Urban Impact to bulk load and transport the materials to Surrey, saving the need for
all of its trucks to drive to Surrey.
"You can only imagine the hassle factor, so this should be a better solution," said Urban Impact's co-owner Nicole Stefenelli.
Without this agreement, it was originally thought the extra trucking could cost upwards of $750,000.
According to Suzanne Bycraft, the city's manager of fleet and environmental programs, the city is continuing to negotiate with MMBC on a more convenient facility.
"There are outstanding issues to be resolved with MMBC regarding the designated post-collection site for Richmond's recycling materials. These discussions will continue," stated Bycraft
in her report.
MMBC has its own designated collectors (if required) and processing sites. The City of Richmond chose to continue to contract its own collection services with Sierra but lost control of where it can send its materials for post-collection processing.
Stefenelli declined to comment when asked about her thoughts on the process, whereby MMBC chose to amalgamate
its post-collection processors into one location.
MMBC is a userpay stewardship model whereby producers of paper and packaging (restaurants, publishers, retailers)
will need to pay a fee for every unit of product they sells. That money is sent to MMBC in order to collect and process the materials.
MMBC pays the city an annual "incentive" rate of $2.3 million to participate in its program. With that money the city pays Sierra to collect blue bin materials.
Unless city councillors refund residents the existing utility rates charged for recycling, critics of MMBC suggest the program is a double taxation on recycling. Some businesses also claim the producer fees are too onerous.
The City of Richmond hopes to achieve 70 per cent waste diversion by 2015.
