It would appear New West residents have quite an appetite for pickles – and other products packaged in glass containers.
Recycling them correctly, however, is proving to be a problem.
At its July 12 meeting, council directed staff to develop a residential segregated glass collection program for council’s consideration as part of the 2022 to 2026 financial plan process. The purpose of the proposed program is twofold; a separate glass collection program would enhance current curbside and multifamily recycling collection services, and it would reduce contamination among recyclables.
Mayor Jonathan Cote said glass it was one of the biggest challenges cited by residents who took part in consultation about the city’s decision to move to a regional recycling centre.
“I know in the community conversations that we have had, I had no idea how many pickles this community ate, but those pickle jars, I heard all about,” he said. “I do think this is a direction I would like to see this going. Obviously we will view that through our budget process coming up.”
In addition to being a “good response” to a lot of the public engagement the city received early last year, Cote said it would also help address contamination that’s occurring in the mixed recycling bins.
The engagement took place in February 2020, a month before the city’s recycling depot closed at it site next to the Canada Games Pool and Glenbrook fire hall.
Because of the design selected for the aquatic and community centre that’s now under construction next to the Canada Games Pool, the city did not have room to retain the recycling depot on the site. The depot closed in March 2020 and the new United Boulevard Recycling and Waste Centre hasn’t yet opened.
A staff report to council outlined the results of community engagement about waste reduction, which found glass, Styrofoam, soft plastics and other flexible plastic packaging to be the most challenging materials for residents to recycle. According to the report, the top suggestion by people who participated in the survey was to expand curbside residential recycling collection to accept more items.
Contamination could be costly
The report also outlined some potentially costly issues related to contamination of products in New Westminster’s curbside collection program. It noted Recycle BC’s audits of the city’s curbside collection program showed an “increasing trend of high contamination” of the city’s curbside collection program, including a 14.1% contamination rate in the fourth quarter of 2020.
“This is significantly above the maximum contamination threshold of 3% under the agreement with Recycle BC, and could lead to substantial financial penalties to the city,” said the report. “At this time, the city is required to develop and submit a formal contamination remediation plan (CRP) for the curbside collection by July 30, 2021, outlining actions, procedures and timelines to reduce contamination in compliance with program requirements.”
Staff believe that introducing a glass collection program, separate from other recyclables that are collected, would help New Westminster to meet its Recycle BC contamination remediation requirements by reducing the contamination volume by as much as 34%. It’s estimated the service would result in an additional user rate of about $10 to $15 per single-family household.
While there’s an additional cost to residents for collecting segregated glass, staff note that not providing these services could result in financial penalties under the city’s agreement with Recycle BC.
“Penalties for contamination beyond a threshold of 3% by volume begin at $5,000 per truckload and could potentially increase by $5,000 annually up to a maximum of $20,000 per truckload after the fourth year of service level failure,” said the report. “Additionally, the total maximum annual penalties for any municipality may incase by $120,000 annually, starting at $120,000 up to a maximum of $480,000 after the fourth year of consecutive service level failure.”
According to staff, if the full penalty is imposed against the City of New Westminster, it could result in penalties that are the equivalent of an annual rate increase of about 7.5%.
Coun. Patrick Johnstone said contamination of the recycling stream is what’s driving the proposed implementation of a segregated glass collection program.
“I think we should also be talking about using education, using enforcement,” he said. “I think that a couple of $100 fines would definitely stop people from putting glass into recycling bins if we were willing to go to that length.”
When staff reports back to council about options for a separate glass recycling curbside program, he said he’d like to get more information about education and enforcement efforts and how that’s been handled in other jurisdictions.
“Ultimately I feel that we need to expect some people to take responsibility for the waste stream,” he said. “If education and enforcement is an effective way of managing some of this problem, than I think we also want to evaluate that. … I just want to have a comparison when we do decide what path we are going to go down.”
Coun. Chuck Puchmayr said Recycle BC set contamination rates that he thought were “extremely low” from the get-go and would be hard to achieve.
“We also took away the ability to recycle glass. That, coupled with relocating our recycling centre, has certainly caused some issues,” he said. “That’s why I think we need to look at this and review this.”
David Lefebvre, spokesperon for Recycle BC, said Recycle BC’s preference is to work with local governments to address contamination issues prior to imposing service level failure credits.
“Our primary goal is to see contamination reduced so we can access recycling end markets effectively and ensure the most material is recycled,” he said in an email to the Record. “We have in some instances had to proceed to financial penalties where high levels of contamination have remained unresolved, though this is certainly not our preference.”
The Record contacted the city to obtain more details about contamination rates in recent years, but did not receive a response by deadline.
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