By Richard McGuire
Osoyoos Times
Osoyoos council may not be happy about it, but at last Monday’s meeting they agreed to sign a five-year renewal agreement with Recycle BC.
The town is upset that Recycle BC announced earlier this year that it will no longer accept recycled materials in blue bags effective as of July 1, 2020.
The surprise announcement came just after the Town of Osoyoos entered into a new five-year curbside collection contract with Waste Connections Canada Ltd. That contract didn’t include the use of bins.
At the final meeting of the previous council in October, council voted to delay signing the agreement with Recycle BC to make a statement about council’s displeasure. They also agreed to send a letter to provincial government and Recycle BC objecting to Recycle BC’s decision.
In a reply received just before last Monday’s council meeting, Recycle BC said local government’s aren’t obligated to continue with Recycle BC’s program – they can operate independently and make their own arrangements with recycling processors.
“While we appreciate that many residents in the Town of Osoyoos would prefer to continue setting out their curbside recycling in single-use plastic bags, Recycle BC must ultimately balance the wishes of said residents with a number of considerations, including the rapidly changing marketplace for residential recycling,” said the letter signed by Jordan Best, director of collection at Recycle BC.
“If Recycle BC cannot continue to find viable markets for the materials that residents recycle, residents’ well-intentioned efforts will be wasted,” the letter continued.
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In a report to the new council, Jim Dinwoodie, director of operational services (public works), warned council that failing to sign by the Nov. 30 deadline would leave the town to fend for itself.
“If an agreement is not reached by Nov. 30, the Town of Osoyoos would no longer be part of the Recycle BC program, which means there will be no packaging and printed paper recycling program in the community,” wrote Dinwoodie.
“It is impractical for the Town of Osoyoos itself to be fully responsible for recycling, sorting and marketing of all materials. Not only would the Town of Osoyoos be fully responsible for the cost of collection, we would also have to pay to recycle all materials collected. It should be noted that the worldwide market for recycled materials is at an all-time low,” Dinwoodie continued.
Dinwoodie added that if Osoyoos decides to use a customer-supplied container or smaller recycling box, there would be no change to the existing contract.
Only if the town opted for a larger cart system would a renegotiation of the contract with Waste Connections Canada Ltd. be required.
The town doesn’t need to choose which type of recycling containers it will use until just prior to the July 1, 2020 deadline to eliminate blue bags, Dinwoodie added.
Some residents have expressed concerns about the larger cart system due to poor maneuverability and the issue of storing these containers.
Why on Earth would a sleepy little town like ours want to go to a large cart system? Surrey has a large cart system but then they also have single family homes that are anything but. And not only can they be a pain to store and maneuver but that pales in comparison to the noise pollution from the hydraulic arms that pick these carts up.
Did I mention that most of the bins here would also be about three quarters empty? Sounds efficient to me.
We have a cart system here in the great town of Oliver, and I couldn’t be happier with it. And I have the small cart. Instead of creating masses of packaging materials, like Styrofoam and clamshell packaging, that don’t recycle easily, I cook my own food. And the recyclables are down to weekly newspapers, and a bit of cardboard. I’m coming into my 4th week of garbage pickups where I don’t have to trundle the cart(s) out. ‘Cause they’re only half full. Why bother to run containers out to the curb when they’re mostly empty? Truly a labour saving device, wish they were her a while ago.
As the Operations Manager for the Regional District of Mount Waddington, I can speak with experience that the cart system is not the only alternative to the single use bag model. Prior to Recycle BC, or Multi Material BC as it was named then, very few households on Northern Vancouver Island had curbside recycling so we had to start our program from scratch. We opted for a medium sized rubber maid garbage bin with a snap on lid to reduce wind blown debris which were distributed to every household receiving the new service. If a household’s recycling needs exceeded the bin’s capacity, the homeowners were encouraged to source containers with similar capacity. Nearly five years later, consensus is that the program has worked well for residents with costs being not burdensome. The added bonus is that the smaller size is not excessively wearing on the collectors who unload the recycling manually and gives ample opportunity to monitor contamination which runs around 2%.