And this service if free?

So if we recycle more, do we get a discount on our garbage bins, since we are putting less in? Also the city is buying 3 new trucks and 22500 bins and how much will that cost the city (tax payers)? Are the recyclables truly getting recycled or are they just going to the land fill anyway? At the end of the day, we just get to, pay…pay…pay. While some investor gets richer…richer under the mantra of saving the planet, while countries like China and India just keep pumping their pollution unabated…sending their junk to North American markets…so that we can recycle even more…and so the world turns…

What is wrong with the recycling we already have?I really don’t mind taking my stuff to the bins and all I see here is just another tax increase.

NoWay… no it’s not free. You the customer will be paying for it through higher prices at the cash register. In a nutshell, MMBC is making retailers responsible for how things are recycled.

In practice, MMBC’S expectations are unrealistic.

Businesses must keep records of how much of their goods packaging and printed materials are going into residential blue boxes and how much goes into industrial waste and recycling; this alone is an impossible demand.

Business must accurately report a complete breakdown of how much of what materials is being used in product packaging. Their expectation is that for every item sold by a business, the weight of any cardboard, plastic, and paper (instruction manuals etc) will be weighed and recorded.

All printed materials sent out (flyers etc) must be recorded as to whether they went to a residential or commercial address and reported accordingly.

Can you imagine the person-hours involved with this? That cost will be passed on to you.

When did the City of PG accept the MMBC contract? In September, it was reported the City of PG rejected the MMBC offer. Does somebody now have greasy palms?

Coquitlam rejected MMBC, stating “”Coquitlam council is gravely concerned that no reputable collector would concede to these conditions and this would inevitably lead to an unacceptable degradation of the existing quality of service.””

Effectively, residents will pay twice – once on their property taxes and again at stores because retailers will build their costs of supporting MMBC into prices.

Maybe they will sell all of us can crushers and plastic compactors so the bins will hold more. Those who recycle should get a discount on their garbage can rates, afterall, someone is going to make money on what we freely give them.
Can we have an indepth study on what actually happens to the recyclables? Something to show exactly where these things end up? And what about used clothing? With al the synthetic materials used nowadays, where does all that stuff go and what can it be used for? I think synthetics are a great waste.

A couple of stories on the subject from other jurisdictions.

http://www.tricitynews.com/news/223207381.html

http://www.tricitynews.com/news/223370211.html

“Can we have an indepth study on what actually happens to the recyclables? Something to show exactly where these things end up?”

The plastic water bottles end up where? Check out this video!
http://youtu.be/-Zn0qi80IIY
All for the sake of clean drinking water. So everyone stop buying bottled water!

What did I miss? The story says the city rejected the offer even with a cash incentive… now its coming anyway?

Hmm… it looks like more ‘eco fees’ are coming to everything we buy.

And by the looks of that picture, I can see all sorts of junk getting blown out of those boxes cluttering up the neighborhood.

Oh well, people said they wanted curbside recycling, looks like we’re going to get it… and pay dearly for it.

Oh no JB – its just like raising the minimum wage or raising corporate taxes. The companies will simply absorb it, they wouldnt even think of passing it on to the consumer…

I will use the curbside recycling but looking at the photo in the story I can see one major flaw. We will have garbage flying everywhere. The ravens will have a field day! It is already a problem on garbage collection days. Loose papers, cups etc. fly out when the bins are dumped. I know in Vernon everything for recycling gets put into a blue bag. I think these are bought at the homeowners expense but we will probably be renting the boxes like we do the garbage bins anyway. We should all be able to rent the smaller bins from the city now though so a wee bit of a savings there.

Doesn’t the stupidity ever stop at the shrine downtown?

The funny thing is that recycling the majority of that stuff on the list causes more pollution than the materials collected do, which really doesn’t make this an environmentally friendly activity. This is just another scheme to take money out of working peoples pockets and give them to a corporation. Does Jimmy P have anything to do with this recycling company? >2 years in this burg and counting, can’t come soon enough.

Count me out. I want nothing to do with it. Our city utility bills are already way to high & have gone up so much in the last 5 years. I make sure I get my monies worth & fill that garbage can full. Only thing I recycle is pop cans & bottles that refund the deposit. I give them to the kids. Other than that, it ALL goes in the garbage can.

i can just see all the paper and cardboard flying around the neighbourhood on a windy day, i will take mine in myself like i have always done

MMBC sounds more like a protection racket. Our pockets are again going to be picked and we are supposed to feel good about it. Who is profiting?

From the lips of the founding owner of Emterra Environmental Group:
“She got the idea to start collecting used cardboard and other printed papers when she was walking around her Winnipeg neighbourhood one day and noticed that businesses were discarding these “valuable resources.”
Valuable Resources? Who is she kidding? Apparently the Province of BC and more appropriately, the City of PG. Paper and cardboard are renewable resources which create 1000s of jobs in BC, it takes more energy to recycle this garbage (which decomposes in the ground) than it does to make it in the first place. Bottle, Cans, Metal, I can understand. Paper, Cardboard, a colossal waste of dollars and energy for nothing.

I have several bins in my garage, not too big and not too small. They aren’t “blue” boxes, they are cardboard boxes!

All month long, I put things in them. Newspaper in one, pop bottles, beer bottles and other returnable containers in another, cardboard and other paper products, tin cans, plastic milk jugs in a third box.

When the boxes get full, I put them in the car and empty them at the Recycling Bins near Save-On-Foods. I’m going to Save-On anyway to buy groceries, so it’s not a big deal to take my recycling bins with me and empty them when I am there.

So, I need curbside pickup because???? And I want to pay for it because????

I think several people have misunderstood the article.
The City said NO to being fined for unacceptable items in the recycling. This is not costing the city, or the taxpayers directly. Instead it is a private company, hired by MMBC, collecting the recycling at your curbside. The city will not be in anyway involved in this scheme.
We will pay for it at the cash register, with higher prices.
I am wondering if MMBC will be fined in anyway for being late with the program. They had a few years to set it up, and didn’t manage to do it. Instead of a May start date, they are starting in September, maybe.

News: “We will pay for it at the cash register, with higher prices. “

I didn’t need more reasons to shop online, but this is another one.

Youtube….Penn and Teller….Recycling…It’s bull—-. I watched it. It’s true. IMO.

On another note there seems to me to be a huge island of recyclables a few days from the beach due west of here. It’s from Japan. Only problem is that there is not a buck to be made. Bummer.

Nowhere in this story does it say the City is involved. Nowhere in the story does it say your taxes will be impacted. To the contrary, the story clearly says the City rejected the MMBC offer for the City to do the pick up. The service is supposed to be “free” and will have Emterra picking up the blue boxes, which Emterra will have to provide and pick up with its own trucks( or a sub contractor).
The whole object of the MMBC is to shift the burden away from the consumer, and ON to the companies which produce the packaging and print materials.

Elaine Macdonald

“The whole object of the MMBC is to shift the burden away from the consumer, and ON to the companies which produce the packaging and print materials.”

That is very true.

But we all know that those companies are not likely to have money printing machines in their offices, so they will have to charge more for the products. We already know that for some goods such as tires, electronics, etc. we see the charge directly at the till on our bills.

Recycling is a business.

The free is costs to businesses who will pass on the costs to customers. Not free.

editor: “The whole object of the MMBC is to shift the burden away from the consumer, and ON to the companies which produce the packaging and print materials.”

…who will then offload it to everyone.

As gus said, recycling is a huge business where the benefits are questionable.

“Paper, Cardboard, a colossal waste of dollars and energy for nothing.”

Yes and no. Both decompose, but not if they are buried in a landfill. Time and time again, when Canadian and US landfills are “mined”, the dominant product found is newspapers and often in readable condition.

If they are kept out of landfills, landfills we would spend less money on building new landfills because they would last much longer.

If recycling makes so much sense, why do we need to pay to do it? Shouldn’t these companies be paying us for the materials?

Ok, I’ll step down from my soapbox now.

“Milk cartons, plastic clam shells, hot and cold drink cups (including coffee cups) aerosol containers, aluminum foil packaging and plant pots.”

We recycle milk jugs already, nice to see more materials added to the recycling list.

As for businesses being charged for the packaging containers they put their products in, I think they should be charged by the amount of packaging and materials they use to sell their products!

Look at the waste of packaging (plastic) in the photo… charge producers for the “amount” they use and maybe they will cut back!

http://www.flipflopdesign.co.uk/530×350/clamshell_packaging.jpg

Hope Tim’s don’t charge a nickel for every Roll up the Rim paper cup next year.

“charge producers for the “amount” they use and maybe they will cut back!”

There are many rational (and some not so rational) reasons for packaging design.

One of them is the way we retail products. The packaging acts as

1. an ad
2. a protection for the product during handling
3. a protection of the product to prevent malicious tampering
4. a deterrent to in-store theft
5. and likely several other reasons.

YET, all that being said, we allow bulk buying of food items which normally are well protected in bottles, plastic bags, etc. yet we can sneeze into the bins or drop items into them, usually unintentionally.

So, we are really not all that cautious about handling food items.

Maybe if we change our retail systems to over the counter buying such as still done at meat, fish, and cheese counters, public markets, etc. we could get rid of packaging to allow increased bulk shipping and have wrapping only at the final point of sale.

Do Biodegradable Items Really Break Down in Landfills?

“Most landfills are fundamentally anaerobic because they are compacted so tightly, and thus do not let much air in. As such, any biodegradation that does take place does so very slowly.

“Typically in landfills, there’s not much dirt, very little oxygen, and few if any microorganisms,” says green consumer advocate and author Debra Lynn Dadd. She cites a landfill study conducted by University of Arizona researchers that uncovered still-recognizable 25-year-old hot dogs, corncobs and grapes in landfills, as well as 50-year-old newspapers that were still readable.”

http://environment.about.com/od/recycling/a/biodegradable.htm

From Trash to Cash: Old Landfills Yield New Opportunities

“The United States was very good at recycling during World War II. It was our patriotic duty. Families brought everything from scrap metal to old tires in to collection centers where they were used to make supplies for the war effort. But when the war ended, so did recycling.”

“From the late 1940s to the early 1970s, Americans were making (and buying) things but not recycling them. We made refrigerators the size of cars and cars the size of boats. And when a product was broken, or even if it wasn’t, it was thrown away. Used cars, refrigerators, mountains of cans, and countless other household products found their way into junkyards and landfills. Now, we may want them back.”

http://science.kqed.org/quest/2013/07/09/from-trash-to-cash-old-landfills-yield-new-opportunities

Ah, ha, ha.. I found Loki; for ages 4+ no less… hmmm… everything makes sense now.

http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-tm4ECC6UOTY/UnS4Dibgq-I/AAAAAAAAab4/ef79KYfBRpk/s1600/ttdwdfloki006.jpg

At any rate, look at the size of the Loki figure compared to the packaging size. Loki (the product) is one quarter the size of the packaging. All that clam shell packaging going to the landfill. I am glad plastic clam shell packaging will now be recycled!!!

That is the cost for leaving a better, cleaner, world for our children. Glad some of us are thinking responsibly by supporting this recycling initiative!

“The whole object of the MMBC is to shift the burden away from the consumer, and ON to the companies which produce the packaging and print materials.”

“That is very true.”

No, that it is not true. Retailers are being given the heaviest burden of MMBC recycling plans, even though they have little to no control over what the product packaging is made of. For example, how would Northern Hardware have any control over blister packaged tools, with cardboard inserts and paper manuals, coming from China? Northern Hardware didn’t produce it.

MMBC is simply going after the easier target. The retailer. In the end, the consumer will be paying the financial burden, and there’s no guarantee there will be a significant improvement in overall recycling.

From the MMBC website…

“In the absence of a BC-based brand owner or franchisor, the first importer of the packaged product or printed paper into BC becomes the obligated party. Businesses that are not resident in BC may choose to become voluntary stewards to relieve their BC importers of the obligation.”

Interesting comments.

The one thing I’ll add right now is that we have curbside recycling out here, including bins for paper.

There is maybe 1-2 days per year where wind will pick stuff up and blow it around and those are on REALLY windy days. For the most part, it’s a non-issue. If I do notice that paper has been blown around and it’s sitting around, I’ll just pick it up and put it back in my bin for the next collection.

I think the reason it’s a non-issue is that our paper bin is usually packed so tightly with stuff that there is little to no chance of it getting blown away. It’s just too compacted. If the bin isn’t full, it doesn’t go out and we wait for the next collection day when the bin is full.

Allot of this really comes down to common sense.

gus: “If they are kept out of landfills, landfills we would spend less money on building new landfills because they would last much longer.”

As consumers, we are paying far more to ‘recycle’ and to prop up the recycling industry than it would cost to build a landfill. Enjoy those eco fees and enviro levies.

I should also add that we have different boxes for paper/cardboard and metal/glass/cartons. There is also a separate compost bin. Everything else goes into the regular garbage.

Garbage is collected every two weeks, compost every week and the other bins every alternating week.

Another article on the subject…

http://www.theprovince.com/touch/business/Laura+Jones+recycling+rules+costly+consumers/9528821/story.html

Hmmm, should work great in the winter time.

This was published in the Citizen just one week ago. What changed?

http://www.princegeorgecitizen.com/news/local/city-dodged-bad-deal-business-group-1.897326

Reading these comments, even after Elaine Macdonald’s further clarification, must have her shaking her head.

I feel your pain Elaine, I feel your pain.

http://www.visualphotos.com/photo/2×4586549/hispanic_woman_squeezing_bridge_of_nose_BLD035184.jpg

People #1, maybe because Elaine is buying what MMBC is selling. Alas she will be in for a rude awaking when prices on everything packaged start increasing.

Yes the mandate of MMBC is to go after the manufacturers of packaging, but how many manufacturers of packaging are there in BC? Very few outside of paper production.

Example, Packright in Port Coquitlam says they manufacture plastic packaging, but all they really do is therrmoform PET plastic into usable shapes. They buy the PET outside of BC in sheets.

The PET manufacturer doesn’t have MMBC threatening a $200,000 fine at them. So Packright will likely comply and pass on the cost to companies who use their products for sandwich packaging, strawberry bins etc. These companies will have to keep a record of every recyclable package they sell to the public. They in turn will pass on that cost, plus the one they incurred from the Packright, to you the consumer.

Get it yet? Or are your pockets so deep you can handle more money being pilfered from your jeans?

It will operate the same way city hall does. Instead of the producer looking for a way to reduce their waste packaging, they will increase costs to the consumer.

This scheme was tried twice in Ontario this century and failed miserably both time. The unlisted partners of this organization are from China. The insiders I have talked to are a group of recyclers from BC that are not in favor of the project as they know very well that the end users of the materials are using the materials as fuel to generate electricity in China. The materials are going to be used as cheap fuel to replace coal as a fuel to generate electricity. There is no GREEN side of this venture. MMBC will make this process look legitimate. The monopoly will collect the endless source of fuel and ship it directly to China in a neat package. No one will be the wiser, and we can all feel good for recycling. We are good sheep.
Ty

The real solution here is to replace petroleum based plastics with organic based plastics. Encourage the use of more biodegradable packaging, how? By taxing the crap out of the non-organic / non-biodegradable packaging and not the product as it crosses our border. When this happens the packaging manufacturers will go green fast enough!

“The monopoly will collect the endless source of fuel and ship it directly to China in a neat package.’

I guess MMBC will force them to comply too, since it’s packaged.

;)

Stores like London Drugs or Home Depot (etc) will be pulling their hair out trying to keep track of all the packaged bits & pieces.

The province is bulling its way in to collect recyclables. I don’t know how they can say we are coming in and doing this with no say from the citizens or the city. It will be a total screw up and a mess. So much for bear aware if people put out cans that are not perfectly clean.