An agreement between the Columbia Shuswap Regional District and Recycle BC was presented as a Christmas gift to the board at its Dec. 13 meeting in Salmon Arm.
Ben Van Nostrand, general Manager of environmental and utility services, updated directors on new depot collection revenue rates and asked them to renew a master agreement to end on Dec. 31, 2029.
In his report to the board, Van Nostrand explained the BC Recycling Regulation requires recovery of residential packaging and printed paper (PPP). He noted the not-for-profit Recycle BC is the organization responsible for recycling this material throughout British Columbia, servicing over two million households or more than nine per cent of the province through curbside, multi-family and/or depot collection services as required by the BC Recycling Regulation.
The CSRD has operated a recycling collection program (depot program) throughout the CSRD at existing transfer stations, landfills, bottle depots and community locations. Prior to the Province of British Columbia introducing a stewardship program for PPP, the CSRD was responsible for all costs associated with the hauling, processing and managing of PPP.
The depot network was not staffed, and many sites did not have restrictions to hours of operation, resulting in high contamination levels.
“When the provincial government added PPP to the Recycling Regulation in 2011, the CSRD entered into an agreement with Recycle BC to manage the PPP depot collection network in 2014, with the service starting on Jan. 1, 2015.
“The agreement required the CSRD to staff and secure depots, as well as move to a multi-stream collection program whereby materials are separated into specific categories at the depot sites,” wrote Van Nostrand in his report. “In return, the CSRD is compensated based on the annual tonnage for each category of material collected and was no longer responsible for costs associated with hauling and processing.”
This compensation has been used to offset the costs associated with operating the CSRD’s depot collection network, namely the costs to staff and administer the program.
“The CSRD, along with other regional districts operating similar depot collection programs, have long argued that the compensation rates did not cover the actual costs to administer the depot collection program, and therefore local governments were in effect subsidizing a Provincial Stewardship Program, which is not adhering to the intent of the Recycling Regulation,” he noted. “However, in preparation for renewing the Master Service Agreement, Recycle BC, to their credit, worked with CSRD staff, along with other local governments, to examine existing rates and develop new rates moving forward.”
Van Nostrand provided financial updates comparing new and existing rates and was happy to report a significant increase in funding beginning in 2025.
The savings will be used to increase funding for existing recycling programs, explore new recycling programs and lower the overall tax requisition for the recycling budget, he reported. Final determination of the decrease in the tax requisition will be presented during budget deliberations.
“I think I promised a good news story, a Christmas bonus, at this meeting in November, “ he said, acknowledging the work CSRD staff has done over the years to try to convince Recycle BC that the rates they were paying were too low. “The spirit of a stewardship program is that it should fund itself, and we were subsidizing it; we knew that when we entered into it, but we wanted to be on the inside and invoke change.”
Many regional districts will benefit from this, he said, pointing out the CSRD’s depot program is pretty much fully funded.
“This is a really good news story,” he added. “They recognize that it costs a lot of money to deliver this service and our costs are going up.”
Deputy Chair Kevin Flynn thanked Van Nostrand for the work he and his staff have put in to the benefit of many other regional districts, Van Nostrand pointed out that over the last couple of years it cost upwards of $750,000 to deliver with CSRD only receiving about $350,000.
