Multi-Material BC has selected Green by Nature — a consortium of recycling firms — to manage the post-collection system for its packaging and printed paper recycling program.

The new organization — which includes recycling firm Cascades Recovery, waste management company Emterra Environmental and Merlin Plastics — won the contract from multiple bidders to process and market an estimated 185,000 tonnes of packaging and printed paper material after it has been collected from curbsides, multi-family buildings and depots across the province.

The MMBC program, which will begin delivering services to about 1.25 million households in B.C. on May 19, is considered the most extensive industry-financed recycling program introduced in B.C. as it shifts the responsibility for managing the residential recycling of packaging and printed paper from regional and municipal governments and their taxpayers to business.

Under the program, businesses are charged a fee based on the material they produce as well as how much they put into the marketplace, said MMBC managing director Allen Langdon. For instance, cereal producers who produce a million cereal boxes will pay a fee for the box board as well as the bags inside.

Langdon said it’s up to the individual producers as to whether they will pass those costs on to the consumers or try to reduce the costs in-house, but expects this will change over time. “Our job is to get a level playing field,” he said. “From our perspective what it is about is the long term. When this becomes a national program I don’t think that attitude (of passing costs on to consumers) will carry.”

The new post-collection system operated by GBN will bring $32 million in new investment to the province, including investment in two new facilities: A container recycling facility in the Lower Mainland and a material recovery facility in Nanaimo that will sort and prepare collected material for shipment to downstream processors and end markets.

The MMBC program will also allow more packaging items to be collected in the municipal blue box, including milk cartons, foam packaging, plant pots, aluminum foil packaging, certain types of plastic film packaging and drink cups.

ksinoski@vancouversun.com