Residents can recycle more through curbside recycling
Vancouver, July 2, 2014—Starting today, Coquitlam residents can add more materials to their curbside recycling, including milk cartons, plant pots, aluminum foil packaging, aerosol containers, and plastic and paper take-out drink cups The addition of these materials is part of a larger transition underway through Multi-Material BC (MMBC)’s packaging and printed paper recycling program, in which the costs and responsibility for recycling packaging and printed paper shifts to the producers who created them, instead of municipal taxpayers.
MMBC is a BC-based non-profit organization that officially assumed responsibility for financing and delivering recycling services for packaging and printed paper across the province in May 2014. MMBC represents more than 900 companies that have stepped-up to meet the province’s Recycling Regulation.
While MMBC is now responsible for curbside recycling collection in Coquitlam, residents will see few changes. Recycling is collected weekly, on the same day as the new green waste collection from the City of Coquitlam. Each household also received a new, light-blue box for non-deposit glass containers, and newsprint, household paper and cardboard can be placed in either of the existing re-usable recycling bags.
Plastic bags and plastic foam packaging can be dropped off at either of the two depots in Coquitlam—Coquitlam Return-It Depot or Lougheed Return-It Depot—that have been accepting all MMBC materials since May 19.
Additional details about the curbside recycling program, including the full list of materials that will be accepted, is available on MMBC’s website at www.RecyclingInBC.ca. Coquitlam residents can also download a smartphone app for personal recycling collection reminders by searching Multi-Material BC in smartphone app stores.
MMBC is among more than 20 Extended Producer Responsibility (EPR) programs introduced in British Columbia over the past two decades, which has seen industry assume responsibility for end-of-life management of items such as beverage containers, electronics, paint, used oil, tires and batteries. The concept behind EPR is to make businesses responsible for collecting and recycling the products they supply into the BC marketplace.
About MMBC
In May 2011, BC’s Recycling Regulation was updated to include packaging and printed paper. The regulation shifts the responsibility for managing the residential recycling of packaging and printed paper from regional and municipal governments and their taxpayers to business.
Multi-Material British Columbia (MMBC) is a non-profit industry-led and financed organization assumed responsibility for managing residential packaging and printed paper recycling on behalf of industry in May 2014.
More information, including lists of MMBC collectors and members, is available at www.multimaterialbc.ca
Media Contact:
Sarah Stephen, 778-588-9505, sstephen@multimaterialbc.ca
