A picture’s worth 1,000 words We’ve all heard the saying, but is it true? The City of Ottawa set out to test the theory. Faced with low capture and high contamination rates in its Multi-Residential (MR) recycling stream, the City of Ottawa decided to pilot a new approach building on a simple truth. If a picture is indeed worth 1,000 words, why not cover Front End Loading bins (FELs) in colourful wraps that feature images of exactly what the City wants [...]
When reviewing audit, survey or other project data and trying to interpret the results, you may have asked: “Does my data achieve statistical significance?” This is one of the biggest and arguably most important questions to answer before you start your project because it will inform how many samples you need to collect. To help, CIF in partnership with the Waste Wiki team has created a Sample Size Calculator. The calculator is an excel document that will estimate the number of samples [...]
If you recall from part 1 of our series on the marketing of recyclables, a key objective was to outline the pros and cons of the various marketing approaches that municipalities could pursue. In this blog, we present a financial comparison of the approaches with the intent being that municipalities and municipal programs utilize the data internally to evaluate the effectiveness of their approach. Revenue from the sale of containers in five different communities over the past three years (July [...]
“Better practice.” It’s well known phrase and your ears probably perk up every time a new idea is framed in these terms. And you may wonder – did that idea ever get implemented? Did it work, was it worth the cost and effort and where can I find out? The CIF Working Groups have got you covered! Established Best Practices, such as those promoted by RPRA, have been guiding Blue Box programming in Ontario since they were first published. However, the [...]
How much & what’s the mix? (photo source: AET Group) Want to Measure Your Program’s Performance? Use the New Waste Audit Data to Find Out Where it Fits Program operators need to have reliable data to measure performance and plan for the future – but gathering this information is time-consuming and expensive. To remove the burden from individual programs, the CIF and Stewardship Ontario conduct and share results of waste composition studies in municipalities throughout the province (thecif.ca/waste-composition-studies/). This data delivered [...]
We often discuss how to collect or sort blue box recyclables but if they aren’t marketed effectively, your program’s finances may suffer. But how do you know? Here’s what an expert had to say. Recyclable Materials Marketing (ReMM) surveyed 14 Ontario municipalities that represent 77% of Ontario’s population to identify the most common marketing approaches and the pros and cons of each. Here’s a summary. MRF contractor markets all material (with or without revenue share): used by 8 programs surveyed [...]
High contamination rates got you stumped? Peel Region transitioned from curbside Blue Box service to an automated cart based collection system in January 2016. Cart based service offers residents more storage capacity so they can set out more recyclables. The good news is that the amount of recycling set out by residents has increased; the bad news is so has the amount of unwanted, untargeted items. Prior to implementing cart-based collection, recycling contamination was over 10 percent and now, with curbside [...]
Outbound vs Inbound Processing Compensation Models The question of how to compensate a MRF service provider is one that we brought up in a blog a month ago. In these times of tightening market requirements, municipalities and service providers are rethinking compensation models. Payment against inbound vs outbound tonnage can both work but there are key items that need to be considered, which include the quality and composition of the inbound material and the term of the contract. Compensation based on [...]
Special guest blog contributed by Barry Friesen, General Manager of CleanfarmsInc. and an Etobicoke Rotarian Imagine hosting a dinner party for 100,000 people. Where do you seat them? Where do they park? Where do you find enough food to feed them? And the overflow of packaging and compostables in your green and blue bins would fill a house. Volunteer staff sorting waste at the recycling station That’s what the Etobicoke Rotary has done for 18 years with its Toronto Ribfest held in [...]
The CIF can help you answer that question and more like it! The Activity Based Costing (ABC) Model developed by the CIF for municipal Material Recovery Facilities (MRF) owners and/or operators is a tool that can be used to gain a thorough understanding of the current costs associated with the management of your Blue Box materials. Once populated, the model can be used to quantify the impact of any changes you may be contemplating to the bottom line and operating efficiencies. [...]