With the announcement that curbside recycling was coming to the city of Prince George, came a landfill of questions yet to be answered for the Regional District of Fraser-Fort George.
Like the city, the regional district did not sign on to the Multi-Material B.C. program to act as a collector of packaging and printed paper.
Businesses that introduce those materials into the marketplace, such as cardboard boxes, plastic clamshell containers and paper drink cups are responsible for their collection effective May 19, as mandated by the province in 2011.
Any type of glass, Styrofoam and plastic film as well as aluminum and plastic beverage cans and bottles are not part of the new recycling program.
Other regional district member municipalities such as McBride and Valemount have received word that curbside recycling won't be introduced in their communities.
"Under the PPP [packaging and printed paper} Stewardship Plan, where an area is receiving curbside collection of garbage, MMBC may decide not to introduce a new PPP curbside collection service," said letters to the communities' staff members from MMBC managing director Allen Langdon.
And no provisions have been made by MMBC, the group representing a variety of producers of packaging and printed paper, for collection in the rural regional district communities.
"At this point, there's no next steps," said MMBC managing director Allen Langdon.
He said the whole objective of the incentive offer was to provide those areas with an opportunity to join the program.
"So at this point we have our collectors in place for 2014," he said.
"We'll be doing an assessment of our coverage shortly and then looking for opportunities to expand our collection network in 2015."
In the meantime, that leaves the regional district at loose ends as its contract current recycling services provider, Cascades Recovery Inc., expires May 31.
Last Thursday, the board's environment and parks committee voted to enter into discussions with the company about bridging that contract at least through September.
"As a smaller member municipality, my community has grave concerns because even if you do this bridging to the end of September, they still aren't going to be looking at the smaller communities," said Mackenzie mayor Stephanie Killam.
"Then what happens to all our recycling?"
And if the regional district has to pay to continue collecting packaging and printed paper, "the taxpayers shouldn't be on the hook for this because [MMBC is] supposed to be responsible for doing all this," Killam added.
According to the province's recycling regulation for product stewardship programs, "responsibility for the management of products is shifted from general taxpayers to producers and users," and "responsibility is not shifted to other levels of government without consent."
The board also authorized staff to invite representatives from MMBC, Cascades and Emterra Environmental - who are carrying out the curbside collection in Prince George - to attend an upcoming board meeting to get some further clarity on the program.
The regional district is not alone in its uncertainty, said chief administrative officer Jim Martin.
"In fact if you were to look a little harder you'd see northern British Columbia and the rural areas are being well under-served because MMBC probably can meet its targets by just serving the larger communities," he said.
According to Langdon, their required recovery rate of 75 per cent of packaging and printed paper will be met with the level of service they are rolling out this year.
