North Bay City Council has adopted a Blue Box and Waste Diversion Plan prepared by the city’s environmental services department.
The annual report is required by the Ministry of the Environment, Conservation and Parks.
The plan highlights the past year and gives direction moving forward as the city continues to look at program expansion and participation, with the goal to increase the amount of recyclables diverted from the city’s waste stream.
Councillor Chris Mayne says the city continues to have a strong recycling program.
“Last year we diverted around 12 thousand tonnes of material from the landfill which provides recycling value and extends the life of the landfill. We can recycle everything but film plastics which are the plastic grocery bags and styrene foam which is Styrofoam,” Mayne told council.
“Everything else; electronic waste, hazardous waste we’re capable of recycling.”
That is in sharp contrast to the launch of the program in 1991, when only five different materials were collected.
The three main recycling goals under the plan are:
- to increase participation,
- expand the scope of eligibility to more users and
- to decrease residue in the recycling facility.
Blue box recycling makes up 40 per cent of the 2019 municipal waste diversion statistics at 3,311 tonnes.
Councillor Mac Bain says it is important to educate people about the importance of recycling and its impact on extending the lifespan of the Merrick Landfill.
Bain stressed the need to educate the public, starting with the younger generation.
All elementary and secondary schools are permitted to place up to 15 blue boxes at the curbside on a bi-weekly basis.
“The schools are a great opportunity to educate the youth and if you get them wanting to do it because it is beneficial to the environment, it carries on at home. Their parents want to do it more. And so, it is a beneficial program to have recycling.”
Lead by Councillor Scott Robertson, the conversation turned to backyard composting.
“As we all know it is a program that was discontinued quite some time ago,” said Robertson.
“I wanted to give council notice that I will be bringing that forward during budget discussions to try to reinstate the backyard composting program in some capacity. As well as trying to reduce our bag limit from three to two during this round of budget conversations.”
Councillor Bain agreed that is was a conversation that council needs to have.
“I look forward to seeing and supporting Councillor Robertson’s backyard composting program,” said Bain.
“As most of council will remember, backyard composting programs were suggested as something we would endorse and look at as a council when the government was thinking about implementing an organic program in North Bay to the tune of millions of dollars a year without a steward. A backyard composting program is an alternative to that to some extent. And so, I would look forward to supporting Councillor Robertson when we have budget discussions this year in regard to that initiative.”
Councillor Mayne reminded council that North Bay is committed to extracting methane from the city landfill.
“We made a very deliberate decision to make significant investments in that equipment years ago, and if we start to emphasize an organics program in the city, that would be to the detriment of revenues that we’re earning from that extraction.”
The plan will be forwarded to the Ministry of the Environment, Conservation and Parks, in compliance with Environmental Assessment Conditions of Approval for the Merrick Landfill Site.
