On August 15, 2019, the Honourable Jeff Yurek, Minister of the Environment, Conservation and Parks directed the Resource Productivity and Recovery Authority (RPRA) and Stewardship Ontario (SO) to, amongst other things, develop a plan to windup the existing Blue Box Program Plan...
Managers of municipal curbside collection programs often have a hard time gathering up-to-date information on the number of units serviced in a collection route. This issue is even more difficult in areas with seasonal populations which leads to challenges reporting out in the RPRA Datacall. These difficulties are compounded...
Recycling at the City of Barrie's waterfront After much anticipation, the Ministry of Environment, Conservation and Parks (MECP) has announced next steps related to Ontario’s Blue Box Program. The MECP has indicated that over the next six years, Stewardship Ontario (SO) will be required to develop...
The potential for the Blue Box Program to transition at any time to an Individual Producer Responsibility (IPR) system has put pressure on municipal staff and contractors to manage contracted operations significantly beyond their original terms. Repeated contract extensions have pushed contractors to operate their equipment well into the late...
Photo courtesy of City of Cornwall The prospect of a new collection and processing contract is always going to be daunting. This process is compounded during times of uncertainty and impending regulatory change. Under Project 1075, the City of Cornwall (City) obtained assistance from the CIF to create a new...
This year marked the 25th time that municipal staff and other experts stepped up to share their up to the minute insights on issues facing the Blue Box program service providers at the Ontario Recycler Workshop (ORW). Each speaker carefully crafted presentations to ensure that the full house of...
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...
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...
With news that transition to Full Producer Responsibility was expected to take hold in Ontario, but without a target date, Waterloo Region staff took a close look at the needs of its Material Recovery Centre (MRC). Since 2012, the Region had moved from 4-stream to 2-stream collection – where glass was...
Ask any program manager about their operating budget and they can speak to it with confidence but ask them what portion of the Human Resources or central customer service costs are associated with waste management and it becomes a different discussion. Yet if producers end up hiring municipalities to provide Blue...
The transition to full producer responsibility (FPR) will see the role of municipalities change dramatically. CIF Project 1017, conducted with the Region of Niagara (Niagara), is designed to walk municipalities through the factors municipalities should consider to determine the role they might play once Ontario transitions to FPR. This blog...
During this period of policy and program change and the uncertainty that it generates, it’s important for municipalities to consider new tools available for use that provide sound evidence to aid in the decision-making process. The tools currently in development by the CIF and its partners are cost accounting models. Whether...
Photo source: Township of Armour Armour Township is making capital investments in its blue box program. Despite uncertainty around the amended Blue Box Program Plan (a-BBPP), changing markets and municipal partnerships and being a small rural northern municipality, Armour has stayed proactive in their approach. In the fall of 2017, Armour invested...
