As Multi-Material BC’s province-wide recycling program nears it’s May 19 start date, Kitimat’s bottle depot on Enterprise Avenue has been tapped to receive the materials.
MMBC has been put in charge of managing a new recycling program across B.C. which will put the costs of recycling products from taxpayers directly to the producers and consumers of the products.
Initially it was hoped that curbside pick-up of recycling would be done in Kitimat, and MMBC offered a contract last year to the District of Kitimat, and other communities, however Kitimat opted out due to uncertainties and logistical concerns.
The second step for MMBC was to issue a request for proposals for curbside pick-up in Kitimat, but the MMBC Managing Director Allen Langdon said no one in Kitimat responded to the call.
From there MMBC said they looked into depot partnerships and an agreement has been made with the bottle depot in the Service Centre. The depot will receive a price per ton of material collected.
This new arrangement doesn’t take KUTE out of the equation in Kitimat, and the KUTE depot will continue to take materials as well.
The key is that MMBC’s program will be accepting residential products, while KUTE will take primarily business and industrial products. For example when the new program launches on May 19, KUTE will collect newspaper, magazines, home office paper and boxboard, among a number of other products, from industry, commercial and institutions.
The current bottle depot will take the same, but only from residents.
Langdon said a public education campaign will launch in the near future.
He said the company Green by Nature, which has been contracted by MMBC to process packaging and printed paper, will make arrangements to pick up the material collected locally to be brought to their own facilities in the Lower Mainland.