After years of false starts and waiting, curbside recycling begins in Tumbler Ridge on December 8.
Tumbler Ridge’s road to curbside began in 2014, when the Province amended the Recycling Legislation to put some of the cost of recycling on the manufacturers. A new corporation—Multi-Materials BC—was created to oversee the recycling in the province using these new funds. At the time, there was a letter sent to the District saying that Tumbler Ridge was on track to having a curbside recycling program, sponsored with funds from MMBC.
On the strength of this promise, the District changed from having an unmanned drop off centre located in the parking lot behind the Lake View Credit Union to a manned recycling centre at the transfer station in 2015.
The move was inconvenient for most and opposed by many, especially those without vehicles who used to be able to walk their recycling downtown, but it was seen as essential for the District’s plans to move to curbside pick-up. To be a part of the MMBC recycling program, the District had to have a manned station. On the strength of that promise, the District bought a new recycling bailer and began planning a new, bigger recycling building.
But two years later, MMBC’s plans were put on hold and the District was told not to pin their recycling plans around the hopes of curbside pickup through MMBC.
MMBC—now Recycle BC—is mandated by the Province of BC to collect and process at least 75 percent of printed paper and packaging (PPP).
In Tumbler Ridge, that figure was estimated at less than 30 percent in 2015, and has dropped into the single digits since moving recycling down to the transfer station, with only an estimated five to seven percent of materials being recycled.
But without the funding from Recycle BC, what was the town to do? The cost of establishing a curbside recycling program was estimated to be about $440,000 per year. Much of that cost would have been creating a multi-stream program, where paper is sorted into paper, plastics with plastics and so on. “At the time, our ability to join the regional recycling programs was limited, resulting in much higher operating costs,” said then-CAO Jordan Wall. “We would have been required to collect our recycling co-mingled and then sort it at our transfer station.”
The solution? Enter into a partnership with the PRRD to institute single stream recycling. “With the regional recycling industry having grown since that time and our ability to work with the Regional District and regional recyclers we are able to collect and transport our recycling co-mingled. This greatly reduces the labour and operating costs required,” said Wall.
Curbside recycling is something new in the Peace Region. When the year started, there were only three communities within the region who offered curbside pickup through the Regional District program: Dawson Creek, Fort St. John and Pouce Coupe. Between the three communities, over 1.2 million tonnes of co-mingled curbside recycling was picked up. Co-mingled recycling means recycling that isn’t completely sorted into categories such as hard plastic, soft plastic, paper and glass.
Residents of Fort St. John pay $5/month on their utilities bill for the service, while Dawson Creek pays $6.75. Pouce Coupe does not charge their residents for curbside pick-up. Meanwhile in 2019, the total cost of the recycling program to the Regional District was about $783,000.
Chetwynd also offers curbside pick-up, but the program is operated by a private recycler and utilizes a “blue bag” system, where material is separated before being placed out for pick-up.
The total capital cost of setting up the recycling program will wind up running half a million. About $120,000 of that has gone towards the new blue bins—which should be distributed by the end of the week—while the remaining $380,000 went towards the current recycling building with a larger facility to accommodate the new bailer.
The cost of processing the material will be covered by the Regional District. This means that the cost of recycling would be negligible for the District.
All the municipal recycling done in the region is done through a company in Fort St. John, and the regional District plans to subsidize Tumbler Ridge’s recycling to the tune of $126,000.
The cost to the Regional District comes from the fact that the company that processes the recycling has to make a certain amount of money per tonne of semi-processed recycling material. The cost of this fluctuates, but is generally sold at a loss; the Regional District covers the shortfall.
What is and what is not allowed
Tumbler Ridge will utilize a single stream recycling system. This means that everything is tossed into the same box and separated at the facility. Currently, when you go to the recycling centre, you are required to separate materials into seven separate bins: one for glass, one for plastic bags, one for other soft plastics, one for paper and cardboard, one for white Styrofoam, one for coloured Styrofoam, and one for hard plastics and tin cans.
Because we are moving to a single stream, some things will not be allowed. The most noticeable is any soft plastics.
Glass also will not be accepted in recycling, nor will Styrofoam.
This means that passionate recyclers will still be making trips down to the recycling centre, though less frequently than before.
Other things not accepted will be scrap metal, electronics, batteries, bedding, paint can, diapers or doggie doo.
Pick up schedules
In order to keep costs down, the District will be moving to an alternating week schedule for garbage and recycling. The first week of December will be garbage pick-up, as normal. The second week, starting December 8, the truck will be picking up recycling. The following week will be garbage, and so on.
Keep it clean
The new recycling bins don’t have latches, so make sure you wash all tin cans and hard plastic containers. Anything that might attract wild animals. If you have pizza boxes with grease on the bottom, tear the lid off, recycle that, and toss the greasy bottom into the garbage.
Trent is the publisher of Tumbler RidgeLines.