BC communities to benefit from new curbside recycling services, according to MMBC

Multi-Material BC (MMBC) says they are pleased to announce the commencement of recycling collection services to 1.25 million BC households in 88 communities, starting on May 19, 2014. The latest communities to be included in the program are Prince George and Quesnel, where residents will begin receiving curbside recycling collection for the first time starting in September 2014. A list of communities that will be served by MMBC is now available on the MMBC website at http://www.multimaterialbc.ca/node/371.   

"We are very pleased to welcome Prince George and Quesnel into the program and look forward to working with these communities to introduce curbside recycling collection and keep more recyclable materials out of landfill," said Allen Langdon, Managing Director of MMBC. "The addition of these communities is a significant milestone in our objective of improving access to curbside recycling across the province."   

"We welcome the service to Quesnel this fall as our residents have proven they embrace recycling," says Mayor Mary Sjostrom. "All improvements to the volume of material we recycle as a community improves our sustainability." 

MMBC says their program is the first of its kind in Canada where responsibility for managing the residential recycling of packaging and printed paper has been fully shifted, by provincial regulation, from local governments and taxpayers to businesses. MMBC says their mandate is to work to ensure that B.C. businesses, many of which are household names locally and globally, meet their corporate sustainability objectives, by enabling responsible recycling solutions that will be offered to consumers.   

Starting in May, MMBC says, B.C. residents will be able to recycle new categories of packaging that are not commonly included in current curbside or depot recycling programs - including milk cartons, foam packaging, plant pots, aluminum foil packaging, certain types of plastic film packaging and drink cups.

MMBC's resident education activities are scheduled to begin in late April, to support the program launch on May 19. In Prince George and Quesnel, where services will begin in September, residents will receive more information this summer about the details of the MMBC program and introduction of new services.   

MMBC is among more than 20 Extended Producer Responsibility (EPR) programs introduced in British Columbia over the past two decades. EPR programs in B.C. are designed so that industry assumes responsibility for end-of-life management of items such as beverage containers, electronics, paint, used oil, tires and batteries. The concept behind EPR is to make businesses responsible for collecting and recycling the products they supply into the B.C. marketplace.   

In May 2011, BC's Recycling Regulation was updated to include packaging and printed paper. The regulation is meant to shift the responsibility for managing the residential recycling of packaging and printed paper from regional and municipal governments and their taxpayers to businesses and manufacturers.   Multi-Material British Columbia (MMBC) is the non-profit industry-led and financed organization with the mandate to assume responsibility for managing residential packaging and printed paper recycling on behalf of industry as pf May, 2014. 

More information, including lists of MMBC collectors and members, is available at www.multimaterialbc.ca 

(SOURCE: Multi-Material British Columbia (MMBC.))