The Capital Regional District (CRD) environmental services committee is looking into options for home pick-up of soft plastics for recycling.
Victoria councilor Jeremy Caradonna, a director on the committee, spoke about what's happening with Ryan Price on CFAX 1070 today.
He said extended producer responsibility legislation does a good job of making companies which sell products creating recyclable waste pay Recycle BC for the cost of processing the material.
“So in a sense the money passes through the CRD and other participating regional jurisdictions, but it is actually not us or our taxpayers who are paying for it,” he said, adding that the CRD is currently making a slight profit on recycling.
Now, staff will look into if soft-plastic material producers can foot the bill in the same way hard-plastic producers do.
Caradonna said some of the concerns associated with putting out the bins soft-plastic recycling, like the wind picking up, can be avoided with a simple swap to the sort of blue-box which can contain the pieces properly. He also suggested larger-scale concerns, like if the soft plastics can actually be recycled, may also become a thing of the past.
While it is true soft plastics sent to the mainland for recycling used to just be burned, he said, CRD staff suggested these plastics are now being recycled into fresh plastic products amid new emerging markets.
Caradonna suggested he hopes to find an option that will not cost taxpayers, but he ultimately said the committee will need to have a more thorough debate if expanding recycling service to soft plastics would pose an incremental cost.