One Year in, MMBC “Happy” With Curbside Recycling Rates
Prince George, B.C. – Exactly one year in and Multi Material BC (MMBC) is pleased with how curbside recycling has caught on in both Prince George and Quesnel.
“I think we’re really happy with how things have gone the first year” says managing director Allen Langdon. “Obviously having never had curbside collection in either Prince George and Quesnel, it’s been a learning process I think for residents but it’s getting better everyday.”
He estimates compliance rates have been in the range of “somewhere between 60-65 percent” – a number he expects will gradually increase.
“We expect that most mature programs typically end up 95 percent plus and I think that’s where we’ll end up eventually,” says Langdon. “But most of those programs have been in existence for 20 plus years so it’s not something that happens overnight.”
He says peer pressure is one key to getting people “on board” with curbside recycling and notes another is education.
“We just had a travelling team that went around to 10 community events in the province including Billy Barker Days in Quesnel and the BCNE in Prince George,” says Langdon.
“They had recycling games, where people can try their hand at making sure they’re putting the right things in the recycling and other things that shouldn’t so I think that kind of one-on-one outreach through those festivals have been really important.”
As for contamination rates (items in the recycling stream that should not be there) he’s also pleased.
“We’re probably somewhere below seven percent, which for the first year I think we’re quite happy with.”
A proposed maximum contamination rate of 3% per load by MMBC with a $5,000 fine for each load which exceeded the contamination limit was one of the reasons the City of Prince George rejected a proposal to collect recycling back in 2013.
Comments
well that’s nice that MMBC is happy. Too bad there is no way to quantify how much it has cost us taxpayers to make them so happy.
Well I am happy with the MMBC service and only received one letter from the guy who takes the crap away. No styrofoam meat packages. I can tell you that recycling has cut my garbage down by half the amount and I switched from a big garbage can to a small can.
It really is based upon motivation of the user who recycles. If you don’t use it well you’re wasting your own money by not taking advantage of recycling. I just wish MMBC would take more like pop cans haha. I never take em in so they just sit in the basement in boxes until a charity comes knocking on my door.
One thing that is really weird is maybe MMBC should have two people working together. One driver and one collector instead of start, stop, start, stop all the way down the street. Unless today one dude was off sick..
Just because their blue bins aren’t at the end of a driveway, doesn’t mean that household doesn’t recycle. I do my own recycling, which I realize not everyone can do.
I also have a long driveway that is quite steep so dragging the garbage container and carrying 2 bins down along with it is quite prohibitive, just to get it to the road to have the wind, vehicles and crows spread it out for me to clean up.
I have no idea of the logistics involved, but other communities have recycling containers with wheels that are color coded for their items.
I seem to use a large amount of water preparing my recycling for pick-up. Not sure I am any carbon credits ahead.
Still use 3 R’s going on 6 or 7 years now and will continue to as they are not as selective as to what is put in the bins as the municipal pick up is. The other private recycler in town only lasted a month before we got tired of finding certain items they would not take thrown back into the bins. Why is it that the current municipal recycler wont take the foam from the meat packing? So you have to take it to another depot? Yes we rinse all of our recycling and ensure only products that can be recycled go into our bins. 3 thumbs up for 3 R’s for their customer service and at only 6 bucks a month we still save money over the municipal deal by not having to drive to other depots for items they don’t take.
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