An announcement regarding who will be handling curbside recycling in Prince George is on its way.
"At the same time we did the [request for proposal] for the post collection, which we just announced, we also conducted an RFP for curbside collection," said Allen Langdon, managing director of Multi-Material BC (MMBC). "So it was a competitive procurement process and so we are just going through the final phase of that and hoping to announce someone in a couple weeks."
MMBC represents a variety of producers of packaging and printed paper products, which the province has legislated as being responsible for the stewardship of the materials they introduce to consumers as of May 19.
Last week, they announced that new organization Green By Nature EPR would be responsible for processing the materials collected at the curbs and drop-off depots - an expected 185,000 tonnes of packaging and printed paper materials.
Under the new program, new items such as milk cartons, foam packaging, plant pots, aluminum foil packaging, and certain types of plastic film packaging and drink cups will be recycled. MMBC has a target of recovering 75 per cent of packing and printed paper put out into the marketplace.
The post-collection system, which will include drop off points no further than 60 kilometres outside community borders, will also bring two new facilities to the province. There will be a container recycling facility in the Lower Mainland and a material recovery site in Nanaimo to sort and prepare material for shipment.
Green By Nature will also engage more than 20 subcontractors leading recycling in their local communities to be part of the system.
According to Langdon, curbside pick up for most of the province's affected 1.25 million households has already been arranged. Many local governments that were already offering the service or had a contract chose to sign on with MMBC as collectors. The stewardship group offered financial incentives to those local governments.
"For communities like Prince George that haven't had the service before and who didn't want to take on the responsibility of providing the service, we put those communities in a curbside RFP and then that was issued in the fall," Langdon said.
The Regional District of Fraser-Fort George also turned down the financial incentives on offer to run the necessary drop-depot system in the rural areas.
The collection incentive offered to the city last summer was up to $32 per household, per year based on the household density, an amount per tonne for glass - collected separately from other materials - and a performance bonus if the amount of material collected reached certain benchmarks.
Northern communities that did sign on to be collectors were Terrace, Smithers, 100 Mile House and 108 Mile Ranch. "And then Williams Lake had existing service and they've signed on to be a collector as well," Langdon said.
