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24May

A Major Ontario Municipality’s Cost Benefit Analysis for Curbside Waste Collection Policies

As part of ongoing efforts to increase residential waste diversion and considering the need to establish clearly defined service levels in its next collection contract, a large Ontario municipality recently completed a cost benefit analysis (CBA), retaining Dillon Consulting Limited (Dillon) through a competitive procurement process to complete the study. The goal was to identify the most effective curbside waste collection policy(ies) to help increase waste diversion and reduce the amount of residential garbage sent to landfill, while also considering [...]

10May

CIF launches new toolkit that simplifies full cost accounting for Ontario recycling programs

As existing diversion programs in Ontario begin transitioning to Individual Producer Responsibility (IPR), the importance of understanding the financial impact of these changes to municipalities is becoming increasingly clear. When Blue Box Program transition occurs, municipal staff will need to be prepared to inform their council of the service level and budgetary implications of turning over their recycling programs to producers or staying on as a service provider. This week’s blog provides a high-level overview of how small (and potentially [...]

03May

Chemical recycling and what it means for Ontario Blue Box programs

The Ontario government in its recent discussion paper: Reducing litter and waste in our communities offered the following: “The increased use of chemical recycling could be used to improve the effectiveness of existing recycling processes and to enable economic growth by expanding the potential end uses for materials that currently are sent to landfill.” This blog, prepared by Dan Lantz of Crows Nest Environmental, looks at chemical recycling and the technological developments taking place around the world. Chemical recycling technologies [...]

18Apr

The Robots are here!

Robotic arm positively sorting HDPE (Source: Machinex Recycling Services Inc.) What is the Machinex SamurAI you ask? Well it’s all in the name. The capitalization of ‘AI’ at the end of the word SamurAI refers to the use of artificial intelligence technology in this sorting equipment. Reference to the Japanese warrior title signifies that the self-aware sorting robot is focussed, fast and precise. It was built to reduce dependence on manual sorting as it is designed to perform up to [...]

12Apr

Assessing Domestic Capacity to Consume Fibres from Ontario Blue Box Program

Background A few years ago, if you asked any North American Material Recycling Facility (MRF) where their recovered curbside newsprint was going, chances are they would tell you that some or all of it was being exported to China. During the past eighteen months, the Chinese government introduced the National Sword and Blue Sky regulations to curtail the amount of contamination from imports of recyclable materials being brought into the country. These restrictions resulted in North American municipalities and MRF processors [...]

04Apr

Contract Clauses to Prepare Municipalities for Transition

In light of the uncertainty surrounding the pending transition to full produce responsibility, municipalities that are contracting for recycling services now, need to provide for the possibility that a change of law may significantly affect their program and/or the scope of work. Including transition clauses in new or updated contracts will help manage this uncertainty. You can prevent or mitigate serious contractual impacts resulting from the new legislation with Change of Law, Force Majeure, Change Management, Assignment, Early Termination and [...]

29Mar

Recycling in the Multi-Residential (MR) sector: three opportunities to improve performance

Multi Residential (MR) recycling performance lags behind curbside for two, nearly universal reasons: a smaller quantity of material is captured, and its quality is compromised by high levels of unwanted items such as food waste and textiles. When faced with challenging and complicated problems such as these, behaviour change researchers Dan and Chip Heath advise that we should focus energy on finding and studying the bright spots (successes) of any activity despite how small or incremental. They argue that focusing [...]

22Mar

2019 REOI Details for Your Application

View the 2019 REOI The CIF Request for Expressions of Interest (REOI) is now open, with a total of $2.09 million to invest in new initiatives. This year’s REOI represents a shift in focus for project funding based on the feedback received from Blue Box stakeholders through the CIF Strategic Plan consultation process. For a complete discussion of this year’s funding priorities please review: Sections 3 of the 2019 REOI; 2019 CIF Operations Plan; and Draft CIF Strategic Plan. Projects that provide [...]

01Mar

Performance impacts: Changing to two stream collection

CIF’s February 1 blog revealed how the Township of Drummond/North Elmsley (DNE) addressed international fiber market issues by transitioning its Blue Box program from weekly single stream to two stream, alternating week collection. This week’s blog answers your follow up questions about: How has this change affected participation? What is the impact of going to two-stream on cross contamination? Were capture and diversion affected? DNE staff are working through steps in their CIF project’s measuring and monitoring plan and, just this week, received the [...]

21Feb

Commitments for Government Procurement Under International Trade Agreements: Find out More!

When CIF staff receive questions that are new to us, we're happy to investigate, and where necessary, obtain expert advice. This week's blog was prepared by Paula Lombardi, LLB of the law firm, Siskinds LLP, to address procurement obligations that may affect Ontario recycling programs. Responding to an enquiry about what are some of the outside influences that Blue Box programs need to be aware of when making procurement decisions, Ms Lombardi prepared the following response. Canada is a party to [...]

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