The conclusion of the 2015 Canada Winter Games will allow those living in apartment buildings to get in on the recycling program.
A announcement Thursday morning at the Civic Centre unveiled the plan to expand the recycling service next spring.
Multi-Material B.C. (MMBC) has come on board as an official supplier for the Games, providing 550 recycling bins at the 33 venues. Those receptacles, furnished by Emterra Environmental, will remain in the community once the Games are over for use by multi-family complex property owners.
MMBC is the stewardship group representing producers of packaging and printed paper, who the provincial government mandated as responsible for collecting the materials put into the marketplace as of May 19 of this year. They pay for Emterra to provide the curbside recycling service that began in September for single-family homes in the city.
The partnership with MMBC not only helps the Games organizers reach their environment and sustainability standards, but also contributes another legacy piece, said Games marketing and communications director Mike Davis.
"We know that there is going to be lots of traffic throughout the city and traffic here [in Canada Games Plaza] and we just want to do our part... to try and leave the space in better shape than when we received it," Davis said. "This partnership today really allows us to do that."
It's a partnership MMBC has been working towards since the summer, said MMBC managing director Allen Langdon.
"We were hoping we could make it available the same time as the curbside [service], but that wasn't to be," Langdon said.
The existing service, which consists of the curbside pick up and the drop-off depots provided by both Emterra and the Regional District of Fraser-Fort George, reduces the material making it into local landfills, said Mayor Lyn Hall.
"We have heard loud and clear ever since the recycling program was introduced that residents of multi-family dwellings are looking forward to this and were anxiously awaiting that inclusion into the program," Hall said.
The 360-litre bins will be made available to multi-family dwellings in April and have the capacity to service up to 4,300 units. Unlike the single-family service, which saw two bins dropped off to households regardless of their intention to participate, property owners have to contact Emterra at 250-596-8023 for inclusion in the service.
Each bin can serve 10 units and the buildings that sign up will get a minimum of two - one for containers plastics and aluminum and one for cardboard and paper, said Ed Walsh, Emterra's vice president of B.C. operations.
It's a free service, but it's not without its cost.
At the start of the program in September, Langdon told the Citizen that program expansion would go hand-in-hand with the number of producers who signed on the the MMBC program. There are more than 900 who have, but there are still holdouts - such as the newspaper industry - who aren't paying fees to the organization.
"Going forward, in terms of other areas in the province, [expansion] will be more challenging," Langdon said of MMBC's investment into providing multi-family service locally. "But as far as Prince George, this was an opportunity to complete the suite of services."
