At its November 2016 meeting CIF Committee approved the CIF’s 2017 Operations Plan. The Plan is intended to meet the CIF’s obligations under its Three-Year Strategic Plan (2016-2018) while building on past successes and addressing priorities identified by the fund’s stakeholders. This year’s Plan also recognizes that legislative changes introduced under the Waste-Free Ontario Act, 2016 have the potential to fundamentally alter Blue Box program delivery in Ontario.
The Plan offers funding to aid municipalities in dealing with this new reality. As always, CIF staff endeavored, when establishing the Plan’s priorities and funding levels, to reflect the many valuable comments that stakeholders shared throughout the past year and in particular, through the CIF’s 2016 Blue Box Outreach sessions.
Request for Expressions of Interested (REOI) Targeted for March Release
With the approval of this year’s Plan, CIF staff is preparing a new Request for Expressions of Interest (REOI) to solicit funding applications from interested parties. Now is the time to consider your upcoming Blue Box initiatives and reach out to CIF staff to discuss their eligibility for funding.
Subject to CIF Committee approval, CIF staff aims to launch this year’s funding REOI process in March. The REOI will make funding available for individual projects based on the Open Grant portion of the 2017 Operations Plan and for research and collective initiatives through the Centre of Excellence component. Funding levels have, however, been adjusted to reflect stakeholder feedback. More details will follow on this year’s REOI process but for now, we encourage you to take a moment to review the Plan and CIF’s approved funding priorities for this year.
New in 2017: to be eligible for funding under this year’s REOI, projects demonstrating a costs saving will need to achieve a payback period of five years or less.
Are you thinking of a potential project idea? Not sure it fits within the funding priorities of this year’s Plan? Be sure to get in touch with any of the CIF staff – the sooner the better so we can ensure we meet your needs.
2017 Event Planning
This Year’s Blue Box Outreach Sessions for Municipal Staff
Plans are already underway for the 2017 Blue Box Outreach sessions for municipal staff. The events are being planned for six locations to take place across Ontario this spring, much as they have for the past several years. More details will follow once the dates and locations are confirmed: please stay tuned.
Interested in Joining the Dialogue?
Last year, several people expressed interest in knowing more about what other municipalities are doing in light of the new legislation. In response, the CIF is in the process of developing a series of ad hoc working groups to compliment those available through other organizations such as MWA and RPWCO. At this point the CIF is coordinating groups looking at MRF, depot and multi-residential recycling operations with an additional collections working group in development. These groups require active participation and involve being able to commit time and resources to the group’s self-directed projects; if you’re interested in joining a group, please contact any of the CIF staff.
Mark Your Calendar for May 18 Ontario Recycler Workshop (ORW) and Training
We’re planning now for a May 18 Ontario Recycler Workshop to take place at the Novotel, Vaughan, just north of Toronto. We also plan to host a number of training sessions for municipal staff at the same location on the day before ORW with more info to follow. For now, we hope you’ll take a minute to mark your calendar and prepare to join us!
Details and registration for these events and and our all new-online training initiative will be coming to your inbox soon.
For more information
Contact CIF staff