Author - Alyssa Broadfoot

Ontario’s new blue box regulation and resources for the road ahead

As announced Thursday June 3, Ontario's new blue box regulation (O. Reg. 391/21) under the Resource Recovery and Circular Economy Act, 2016 has been finalized and is now published on e-Laws at: https://www.ontario.ca/laws/regulation/r21391 The regulation, which will transition Ontario's blue box program to an Individual Producer Responsibility framework, brings into focus the path ahead for...

New approach improves Multi-Residential recycling

The City of Guelph expects the high-density, multi-residential (MR) sector to grow to over 30% of its total housing stock by 2031, up from 11% in 2011. In an attempt to improve and expand collection services to MR buildings the City added front-end service in 2018. This involved purchase of...

Robot combines Hyperspectral vision with Artificial Intelligence for residential recycling

Last December (2020), Bluewater Recycling Association (BRA) broke new ground in Ontario residential recycling processing by installing six new Artificial Intelligence (A.I.)-enabled robotic arms in their Material Recovery Facility (MRF). The investment was driven by the need to reduce reliance on hard-to-retain manual sorters and deal with a material mix...

How do outreach efforts impact different households?

This week's blog post was originally published March 30, 2021 by Resource Recycling. Education campaigns may improve curbside recycling practices for residents who produce average or low amounts of contamination, but they may not impact the worst offenders, according to new research. The Solid Waste Association of North America (SWANA) has released a...

Public Engagement: Going Online Only

Appropriate engagement opportunities allow municipalities to make better decisions on projects or plans. Public input can maximize the benefits of a project, minimize any negative impacts, and provide new ideas or initiatives for communities. Since successful waste management systems rely on those that participate, getting public engagement in waste management...

Reaching residents during a pandemic

Contamination levels in the blue box program have been top of mind for many municipalities. The issue has led to a variety of contract management challenges, requiring, in some cases, that contracts be renegotiated. Contamination has also been a topic of concern in the development of the impending regulation. Interestingly,...

Next Generation Technologies: RFID for a targeted approach to Promotion & Education

Municipal recycling costs have continued to increase annually, due to the increasing complexity and light-weighting of the packaging supplied into the market. Sorting challenges and confusion amongst residents is growing as packaging becomes more complex and multi-layered. In turn, this contributes to higher contamination rates and higher net system costs. The CIF,...

Part III. Put a lid on it: Collection Costs

In this final installment of the "Put a lid on it" mini-series, we continue to share the initial learnings from a litter, moisture and time-and-motion audit conducted in Durham Region in the fall of 2020. Part I focused on litter, including the causes, composition, and lids as a potential solution....

Part II. Put a lid on it: Keep moisture out

In this second installment of the "Put a lid on it" mini-series, we continue to explore the initial findings of a litter, moisture and time-and-motion audit conducted in Durham Region in the fall of 2020. Part I focussed on litter, including the causes, composition and lids as a potential solution....