In the Spotlight
The North Shore Recycling Program: Equipping Residents with the Right Recycling Knowledge and Resources
Planning and administering of all residential waste reduction, reuse and recycling programs for the City of North Vancouver, the District of North Vancouver and the District of West Vancouver, the North Shore Recycling Program continuously develops and delivers community-based programs that work directly with residents to reduce the amount of garbage going for disposal.
The North Shore Recycling Program is a unique tri-municipal government agency in the Province of British Columbia that was established in 1990 when the Greater Vancouver Regional District (now called Metro Vancouver) mandated that every municipality in the region (22 municipalities) must have a residential recycling collection program. (Regional Districts are very similar to counties). The three municipalities were very forward thinking in their decision to partner with one program to avoid duplication of costs and provide consistency in three municipalities that are linked by geography.
The NSRP is responsible for the planning and administration of all residential waste reduction, reuse and recycling programs for the City of North Vancouver, the District of North Vancouver and the District of West Vancouver (collectively known as the North Shore). With a total population of about 180,000 (38,000 single-family homes and 33,000 multi-family units), the recycling collection program also includes the three municipal halls and related facilities, community centers, fire stations and all public and most private schools.
Unlike most local government agencies, the NSRP is housed in a 2,700 square foot street-front office in North Vancouver—an ideal location for drop-in visits by residents—where NSRP staff is there five days a week to hand out blue boxes, blue and yellow bags and to provide information on a variety of subjects. The NSRP also operates a 3/4 acre Recycling Drop-Off Depot that accepts the same materials collected in the residential sector and small quantities of paper products, especially corrugated cardboard, from the commercial sector. The depot, open daily, is equipped with separate compactors for corrugated cardboard and mixed paper and 30 and 40 cubic yard roll-off containers for newspaper, magazines, plastics, glass and tin cans. They also accept used clothing and all types of books. The NSRP strongly promotes home composting and sells the Garden Gourmet Backyard Composter Bin ($45) and Wingdigger Compost Aerator ($7.50) out of the depot. This is a very popular program with more than 450 composters being sold on an annual basis. Since 1991 they have sold more than 17,000 composters to North Shore residents.
Recycling Collection, Processing and Marketing
In 1990, the first recycling collection program included newspapers and metal, glass and plastic food and beverage containers. The plastic containers acceptable back then were limited to those made from #1 PET and #2 HDPE. Over the years, the NSRP added mixed paper and all rigid plastic bottles and containers with the codes #4 LDPE and #5 PP. They do not accept film plastic or plastics with the codes 3, 6 or 7 as there is no market for these plastics (see Figure 1).
Single-family recycling collection is a three-stream source-separated program using a blue box for containers, a blue reusable plastic “envelope” for newspaper and a yellow reusable plastic envelope for mixed paper (see Figure 2). This type of source separated system is very popular in the Vancouver area.
Multi-family recycling collection is also a three-stream source-separated program using 96-gallon carts, with a minimum of one cart for each of the three material streams—newspaper, mixed paper and mixed containers. More than 95 percent of all multi-family sites on the North Shore have the NSRP recycling system. Weekly garbage collection services are provided by the private sector except in the District of North Vancouver which does provide commercial garbage collection to all public schools and some businesses and multi-family sites.
NSRP’s Manager, Allen Lynch, says, “The municipalities have what is called a mandatory pay, voluntary participation program. All single and multi-family homes pay for the program whether they use it or not. Each municipality has a “Solid Waste Utility” and all solid waste costs and revenues are run through the utilities. A separate annual solid waste charge is assessed to each home and none of the costs for solid waste are included in property taxes.” The average cost for a single-family property owner for weekly collection of garbage, yard trimmings and recyclables is $270 per year. Multi-family recycling charges average $72 per year per individual multi-family dwelling.
The municipalities are two years into a five-year contract with Waste Management that covers the collection, processing and marketing of the recyclables. Waste Management does the collection but sub-contracts the processing to Emterra Environmental which owns and operates a small Material Recovery Facility (MRF) in North Vancouver. The municipalities pay Waste Management a unit price per home for collection and a separate price per metric ton for the processing of each material stream. The municipalities believe in sharing the good and bad times with their contractor and have a revenue-sharing agreement with Waste Management. The municipalities receive 75 percent of the revenue from the sale of newspaper and mixed paper with the prices based on two different published paper industry indicators. With paper markets being very strong, the municipalities received just over $1 million in revenue last year from the sale of 12,000 metric tons of newspaper and mixed paper. Since 1990 the municipalities have returned more than $15.5 million to North Shore taxpayers from the sale of paper products. One of the main reasons the NSRP receives as much revenue as they do is their insistence on maintaining a source-separated collection system that produces a very clean stream of paper products. Their contract with Waste Management requires that the newspaper be sold as #8 ONP (old newspaper) which is the highest grade.
The three North Shore municipalities have one of the highest single-family diversion rates in the Vancouver area. In 2010 that diversion rate was 59.5 percent while participation in the recycling collection program was close to 100 percent for single-family homes and more than 95 percent for multi-family.
Garbage and Yard Trimmings
The NSRP also administers the garbage and yard trimmings collection contract for the District of West Vancouver. “We are two years into a five-year contract with Emterra Environmental for the collection of garbage and yard trimmings,” says Lynch. “The City and District of North Vancouver collect garbage and yard trimmings with their own trucks and employees but the NSRP recommends the policies for the collection of garbage and yard trimmings. The programs are consistent across the North Shore.” Residents in all three municipalities have weekly collection of garbage, yard trimmings and recyclables. There is a weekly two-can limit for garbage (a can being standard 20-gallon capacity) while there is no limit on yard trimmings collection except in the District of North Vancouver which has a six-item limit. Yard trimmings must be placed in either standard 20-gallon garbage cans with lids (properly identified with a “Yard Trimmings” decal), a 20-gallon Kraft paper yard trimmings bag or 3’ x 1’ bundles of branches.
Garbage and yard trimmings collection in the City of North Vancouver and District of West Vancouver is manual while in the District of North Vancouver they have both manual and semi-automated collection. About 75 percent of the homes in the District of North Vancouver have either 60 or 96-gallon carts but residents must still abide by the 20-gallon per week limit for garbage.
All single-family garbage collected from North Shore residences is taken to the North Shore Transfer Station in North Vancouver where it is then loaded into transfer trailers for hauling to either the Waste-to-Energy facility or the Vancouver Landfill. Tipping fees are now $97 per metric ton.
The yard trimmings also go to the North Shore Transfer Station but to a separate paved area where they are consolidated with yard trimmings and clean wood waste dropped off by residents and landscapers and taken to Fraser Richmond Soil & Fibre in the nearby City of Richmond for composting. The tipping fee for yard trimmings is $63 per metric ton.
Community Outreach
The NSRP has been widely recognized as an innovator in developing and delivering community-based programs that work directly with residents to reduce the volume of garbage going for disposal. Lynch explains, “Our main focus in 2010 was an emphasis on promoting the treatment of organics at home rather than putting them out at the curb for collection because this avoids the high costs of collection and processing of yard trimmings”(see Research Project sidebar). In addition, the NSRP offers a number of programs to help residents including:
- The subsidized sale of backyard composters and compost turning tools
- Compost coaching in which NSRP staff go to residents’ homes to provide personalized assistance on how to compost properly
“How-to-videos” on backyard composting (written and produced by NSRP staff)
- Spring and Fall GardenSmart workshops
- Community events and displays on “Composting in Bear Country” (black bears are a problem on the North Shore)
“Natural Garden Parties” where North and West Vancouver residents have the opportunity to host an informative, casual natural gardening workshop right in their own backyard.
“Elementary school programs are also a very important part of our outreach approach,” emphasizes Lynch. “Mission: Zero Waste is a school-wide waste reduction program for North Shore Elementary Schools. This fun and hands-on program motivates children to take steps towards creating a zero-waste community. From the initial staff meeting to final assembly, Mission: Zero Waste takes about seven weeks and has proven to be extremely successful and rewarding.” In 2010, the Solid Waste Association of North America awarded the NSRP with a Gold Excellence Medal in Public Education for the Mission: Zero Waste program.
The NSRP has also developed a handy portable Zero Waste Station (see Figure 3) to support waste reduction in the community. “Any North Shore community group can now reduce the amount of waste their small community events create by borrowing a Zero Waste Station. There is no cost to the program, outside of a $200 deposit to secure the Station(s),” Lynch points out. He says the Zero Waste Station is best suited to small events (between 20 and 500 people); however, organizers of larger events are welcome to apply to borrow the Zero Waste Station to supplement existing recycling bins.
NSRP’s other community outreach initiatives include waste audits for libraries and city halls, Request-a-Speaker (where local groups can call the NSRP and ask for someone to speak on a variety of waste reduction and recycling topics), community events (such as festivals, home shows, etc.) and high school composting support.
The NSRP has also been very successful in obtaining corporate sponsorship which helps to keep costs lower for taxpayers. The North Shore Credit Union sponsors the blue box and an eco-friendly hybrid car, the North Shore News sponsors the Yellow Bag for mixed paper, Prudential Sussex Realty sponsors the Blue Bag for newspapers and Re/Max Crest Realty sponsors the multi-family blue bag (used by MF residents to store and transport their recyclables to the centrally-located recycling carts).
In addition, the NSRP has partnerships with the Lynn Canyon Ecology Centre, the Edible Garden Project, the North Shore Black Bear Society and Block Watch. “They are our partners in our GardenSmart Workshop series, our Natural Garden Parties and other community events,” says Lynch.
Despite being a tri-municipal government agency, the NSRP is very independent when it comes to communications. They create most everything in-house including:
- Web site design and updates
- Strong presence with social networks such as Facebook and Twitter
- Writing media releases, articles and opinion pieces for local media
- Designing and publishing newspaper ads, informational flyers, guides, event posters and flyers
- Designing, editing and publishing the annual solid waste collection calendars for all three municipalities
- Monthly GardenSmart e-newsletter—a free monthly listing of environmental sustainability, waste reduction and natural gardening events and initiatives on the North Shore sent out to more than 1,600 residents each month
Waste Reduction Challenges
Working with three local governments is not without its challenges. Major projects and recycling contract awards require Lynch to appear before all three municipal councils. Given that all three municipalities must agree on contract awards and policy, there have been times in the past when it has been touch and go as to whether or not he would get the approval of all three. “While the economy has been relatively strong in the Vancouver area, there is always pressure to keep taxes down and it is often difficult to move forward with new waste reduction and recycling programs when they are competing with other municipal priorities.”
Lynch says that one of the biggest challenges facing the NSRP and its three municipal governments is the collection of single-family food scraps. “While a number of other local municipalities have already added food scraps to their weekly yard trimmings collection programs, the NSRP is still waiting for the necessary capital improvements to the North Shore Transfer Station to allow for addition of food scraps,” he explains. “Negotiations are currently underway and the NSRP is hopeful that single-family food scraps collection can begin later this year or early in 2012.”
Metro Vancouver, like many other large metropolitan areas of North America, has adopted a Zero Waste philosophy and, in Metro’s case, it is called the Zero Waste Challenge. One of the targets of Metro Vancouver’s new Integrated Solid Waste and Resource Management Plan is to increase the regional diversion rate from an average of 55 percent to a minimum of 70 percent by 2015 and an aspirational target of achieving 80 percent by 2020.
This is definitely a challenge as it means more diversion will have to come from the commercial, ICI and DLC sectors. Traditionally, municipalities have only been responsible for recycling and waste reduction activities in the residential sector. “Metro Vancouver is now putting pressure on the municipalities to become much more involved in the other sectors both from both a regulatory and enforcement perspective,” says Lynch.
He points out that, currently, the hottest issue is the provincial government’s recent decision to require producers and retailers to design a plan to collect all packaging and printed papers from consumers. “British Columbia is already one of the most progressive jurisdictions in North America with a multitude of Extended Producer Responsibility Programs (EPR) that include products such as beverage containers, paints, pesticides, tires, batteries, pharmaceuticals, electronics, used oil and oil filters, etc.,” says Lynch.
This new EPR initiative, which is to be in place by 2014, will shift the responsibility for collecting newspapers, mixed paper, cans and bottles and virtually everything else that now goes into municipal blue box programs onto product producers. The EPR program for these materials will alter the role of local government in managing recyclable materials and calls into question what will happen with existing municipal contracts for collection and processing and, for those municipalities that do their own collection, compensation for their investment in trucks, containers and recycling depots.
While the NSRP is in favor of shifting the costs of collecting and processing packaging and printed papers from taxpayers to producers and consumers, there are concerns about the administration of any residential collection system that is not overseen by local government. There are also questions about the funding of municipal outreach programs. However, Lynch is optimistic that all of the parties involvedwill work together to design an EPR program that will be beneficial to all.
Future Plans
This year, the NSRP will focus its efforts in two main areas: organics and multi-family recycling. The three North Shore municipalities will be adding food scraps to the yard trimmings collection program in the near future so they will be conducting an intensive research study and program plan to ensure that they are well prepared for the launch of the program.
“With respect to multi-family, while the NSRP program is already well-entrenched, there will be a concentrated effort this year to research and develop a community-based social marketing program plan to overcome the remaining challenges and barriers and to improve participation and increase diversion of recyclables,” says Lynch.
“The NSRP has one of the highest diversion rates in the Metro Vancouver area and this could not have been achieved without the outstanding efforts of its staff. All of them have been instrumental in our getting to where we are today.”
For more information, contact NSRP Manager, Allen Lynch, at (604) 984-9730 [email protected].
Figure 1
Plastic codes.
Figure courtesy of www.knib.org/recycling/plastic-codes.
Figure 2
Recycling, garbage and yard trimmings set out for curbside collection.
Photo courtesy of Amanda Vantol.
Figure 3
Laura Krohn uses North Shore Recycling Program’s Zero Waste Station at a community event.
Photo courtesy of Lisa Parker.
Sidebar
NSRP Vision: “As a tri-municipal agency, we will engage the North Shore to achieve minimum waste generation and maximum waste diversion.”
Mission Statement: “We work internally with North Shore municipal governments and externally with North Shore residents, businesses, institutions and other levels of government to help decrease consumption, increase reuse and maximize recycling, thereby reducing both the generation and disposal of solid waste on the North Shore. We do this by designing, delivering and supporting comprehensive, convenient, cost effective, environmentally responsible and innovative programs and services.”
Sidebar
Research Project
In 2010, the NSRP conducted an award-winning year-long intensive research project to calibrate the organic waste diversion rates attributed to backyard composting. Twenty-five volunteer composting households were recruited to participate in the project. They received personalized compost coaching and then weighed their composted household organic waste and yard trimmings for 11 months. Based on the results of the study, the NSRP was able to calculate that each year between 8,400 and 10,500 metric tons of single-family organic materials are generated but never placed at the curb for collection. This rivals the 10,700 metric tons of yard trimmings that were collected last year in the residential weekly yard trimmings collection program. Without backyard composting, North Shore municipalities would require an additional 1,500 truck trips to the Transfer Station for which they would be charged almost $875,000 in tipping fees alone each year. The North Shore does not currently include backyard composting in the calculation of its single-family diversion rate. When backyard composting is factored in, the North Shore’s diversion rate jumps from 59.5 percent to 66.8 percent.
At its June conference, the Recycling Council of British Columbia awarded the NSRP the Public Sector award for this groundbreaking research.
The full report can be downloaded from the NSRP’s Web site at www.nsrp.bc.ca.