What Ontario’s new province-wide Blue Box collection system means for carton recycling

BY ISABELLE FAUCHER, CARTON COUNCIL OF CANADA

Amajor milestone was reached in the summer of 2022 when Ontario’s Blue Box recycling program transformed into a fully producer-led model. Circular Materials together with RYSE Solutions, who are the two full-service producer responsibility organizations (PRO) acting on behalf of producers in Ontario, submitted a plan called the “Initial Report” that spells out how they propose to set up and manage the collection of Blue Box materials in communities across the province.

Up to now, municipalities were the ones responsible for setting up their own collection systems to bring recyclables from the residential sector and, in some cases, from other locations (e.g., public spaces, schools) to a material recovery facility (MRF) for them to be sorted, baled, and sent off to recyclers. According to the architects of the new plan, a common collection system, which will be administered by a single entity for the entire province, will start to replace the currently fragmented arrangement on July 1, 2023. A hybrid system will persist until Ontario completes its transition to a full extended producer responsibility model, which is scheduled to happen no later than January 1, 2026.

This common collection system, or CCS for short, will be administered as a non-profit enterprise by Circular Materials as its official administrator, together with a PRO operating committee comprised of the two PROs and individual producers who wish to join them. Producers who prefer to fulfill their recovery obligations on their own can in fact do so without subscribing to one of the PROs.

A day-to-day operator for the common collection system has already been selected. RLG Canada, the Canadian arm of international recycling and returns management specialists Reverse Logistics Group, will be involved in the start-up phase of the CCS.

A core component of the new system will be a network of receiving facilities spread out across the province. These are the places where the collected Blue Box material will be offloaded by collection vehicles before they get sorted. Importantly, all these facilities will be situated no further than a 60-minute drive from the centres of the municipalities they serve. The process of selecting these facilities through a request for proposals has already begun. It must be noted that single-stream collection (in which all recyclables are mixed together) and dual-stream collection (where fibres are collected separately from containers, including food and beverage cartons) will continue to cohabit under the new system.

System administrators will also be responsible for contracting waste haulers across the province to collect the Blue Box materials and drive them to the receiving facilities. The RFP process for selecting these haulers is also underway and should be completed by next February. During the transition period, municipalities will have the option to continue providing collection services (either directly or through their service provider) if they so choose.

Each PRO will then regularly pick up from each receiving facility the share of materials their producers represent, as would the producers acting individually. This share, established by weight, would be determined by the proportion of paper, packaging, containers, and other recyclables that each producer puts on the market in Ontario. An outside accounting firm will ensure the accuracy of these calculations while preserving the confidentiality of any sensitive commercial information. These materials will be taken to primary sorting and separation facilities located in Ontario for the most part, except possibly for those from northwestern Ontario which may be processed in Manitoba.

Return-It has expanded its compressed natural gas (CNG) electric hybrid compaction truck fleet with the addition of three new trucks to its dedicated transportation network – a move that drives the organization closer to the goal of decarbonizing various areas of operations. The three trucks, which will join an existing fleet, will lower greenhouse gas emissions from beverage container transportation by up to 25 percent while at the same time reducing the number of transport vehicles on the road.

In September 2020, Return-It and its partners launched a pilot program for specialized CNG-electric hybrid compaction trucks. Since that first truck hit the road, approximately 150 million plastic bottles have been compacted as of September 2022. With the success of the pilot program, Return-It is making the program permanent and expanding the fleet to four

CNG-electric hybrid trucks and three compaction trailers.

“Transportation contributes to 40 percent of British Columbia’s overall GHG emissions and it is our goal province-wide to reduce these emissions by 40 percent by 2030,” says Rob

Fleming, minister of transportation and infrastructure. “We are excited to see organizations like Return-It adopting new low-carbon technologies in CNG-electric hybrid vehicles for their heavy-duty fleets. We need to work collectively toward transitioning toward zero-emission vehicles and welcome the benefits of this expansion.”

Supplied by Hyliion, the CNG-electric hybrid powertrains not only release fewer emissions than existing diesel trucks, but when combined with new and powerful compaction technology, they also help reduce the number of vehicle trips required to take beverage containers from recycling depots to processing facilities. Adding the three CNG-electric hybrid compaction trucks reduces the number of kilometres travelled by 84,000 annually.

With the new trucks, service collection will gradually increase from 17 to 48 recycling depots throughout British Columbia’s Lower Mainland, with the goal of expanding across more communities province-wide.

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