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The North Shore Recycling Program: Equipping Residents with the Right Recycling Knowledge and Resources
Planning and administering of all residential waste reduction, reuse and recycling programs for the City of North Vancouver, the District of North Vancouver and the District of West Vancouver, the North Shore Recycling Program continuously develops and delivers community-based programs that work directly with residents to reduce the amount of garbage going for disposal.
The NorTh Shore recycliNg Program (NSRP) is a unique tri-municipal government agency in the Province of British Columbia that was established in 1990 when the Greater Vancouver Regional District (now called Metro Vancouver) mandated that every municipality in the region (22 municipalities) must have a residential recycling collection program (Regional Districts are very similar to counties). The three municipalities were very forward thinking in their decision to partner with one program to avoid duplication of costs and provide consistency in three municipalities that are linked by geography. The NSRP is responsible for the planning and administration of all residential waste reduction, reuse and recycling programs for the City of North Vancouver, the District of North Vancouver and the District of West Vancouver (collectively known as the North Shore). With a total population of about 180,000 (38,000 single-family homes and 33,000 multi-family units), the recycling collection program also includes the three municipal halls and related facilities, community centers, fire stations and all public and most private schools. Unlike most local government agencies, the NSRP is housed in a 2,700 square foot streetfront office in North Vancouveran ideal location for drop-in visits by residentswhere NSRP staff is there five days a week to hand out blue boxes, blue and yellow bags and to provide

Depot Staff Aaron Beallor loads corrugated cardboard into a compactor at the North Shore Recycling Drop-off Depot.
Photo courtesy of Kathleen OMalley.

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The North Shore recycling Program: equipping residents with the right recycling Knowledge and resources
information on a variety of subjects. The NSRP also operates a 3/4 acre Recycling Drop-Off Depot that accepts the same materials collected in the residential sector and small quantities of paper products, especially corrugated cardboard, from the commercial sector. The depot, open daily, is equipped with separate compactors for corrugated cardboard and mixed paper and 30 and 40 cubic yard roll-off containers for newspaper, magazines, plastics, glass and tin cans. They also accept used clothing and all types of books. The NSRP strongly promotes home composting and sells the Garden Gourmet Backyard Composter Bin ($45) and Wingdigger Compost Aerator ($7.50) out of the depot. This is a very popular program with more than 450 composters being sold on an annual basis. Since 1991 they have sold more than 17,000 composters to North Shore residents.

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Recycling Collection, Processing and Marketing

In 1990, the first recycling collection program included newspapers and metal, glass and plastic food and beverage containers. The plastic containers acceptable back then were limited to those made from #1 PET and #2 HDPE. Over the years, the NSRP added mixed paper and all rigid plastic bottles and containers with the codes #4 LDPE and #5 PP. They do not accept film plastic or plastics with the codes 3, 6 or 7 as there is no market for them (see Figure 1). Single-family recycling collection is a three-stream sourceseparated program using a blue box for containers, a blue reusable plastic envelope for newspaper and a yellow reusable plastic envelope for mixed paper (see Figure 2, page 22). This type of source separated system is very popular in the Vancouver area. Figure 1: Plastic codes. Figure courtesy of www.knib.org/recycling/plastic-codes. Multi-family recycling collection is also a three-stream sourceseparated program using 96-gallon carts, with a minimum of one percent of the revenue from the sale of newspaper and mixed paper with the cart for each of the three material streamsnewspaper, mixed paper and prices based on two different published paper industry indicators. With paper mixed containers. More than 95 percent of all multi-family sites on the North markets being very strong, the municipalities received just over $1 million in Shore have the NSRP recycling system. Weekly garbage collection services are revenue last year from the sale of 12,000 metric tons of newspaper and mixed provided by the private sector except in the District of North Vancouver, which paper. Since 1990, the municipalities have returned more than $15.5 million does provide commercial garbage collection to all public schools and some to North Shore taxpayers from the sale of paper products. One of the main businesses and multi-family sites. reasons the NSRP receives as much revenue as they do is their insistence on NSRPs Manager, Allen Lynch, says, The municipalities have what is called maintaining a source-separated collection system that produces a very clean a mandatory pay, voluntary participation program. All single and multi-family stream of paper products. Their contract with Waste Management requires that homes pay for the program, whether they use it or not. Each municipality has the newspaper be sold as #8 ONP (old newspaper), which is the highest grade. a Solid Waste Utility and all solid waste costs and revenues are run through The three North Shore municipalities have one of the highest single-family the utilities. A separate annual solid waste charge is assessed to each home and diversion rates in the Vancouver area. In 2010, that diversion rate was 59.5 none of the costs for solid waste are included in property taxes. The average percent while participation in the recycling collection program was close to 100 cost for a single-family property owner for weekly collection of garbage, yard percent for single-family homes and more than 95 percent for multi-family. trimmings and recyclables is $270 per year. Multi-family recycling charges average $72 per year per individual multi-family dwelling. Garbage and Yard Trimmings The municipalities are two years into a five-year contract with Waste The NSRP also administers the garbage and yard trimmings collection Management which covers the collection, processing and marketing of the contract for the District of West Vancouver. We are two years into a fiverecyclables. Waste Management does the collection but sub-contracts the year contract with Emterra Environmental for the collection of garbage and processing to Emterra Environmental, which owns and operates a small Material yard trimmings, says Lynch. The City and District of North Vancouver Recovery Facility (MRF) in North Vancouver. The municipalities pay Waste collect garbage and yard trimmings with their own trucks and employees, Management a unit price per home for collection and a separate price per metric but the NSRP recommends the policies for the collection of garbage and yard ton for the processing of each material stream. The municipalities believe in trimmings. The programs are consistent across the North Shore. Residents sharing the good and bad times with their contractor and have a revenuein all three municipalities have weekly collection of garbage, yard trimmings sharing agreement with Waste Management. The municipalities receive 75 and recyclables. There is a weekly two-can limit for garbage (a can being
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WasteAdvantage Magazine July 2011

research project

In 2010, the NSRP conducted an award-winning year-long intensive research project to calibrate the organic waste diversion rates attributed to backyard composting. Twentyfive volunteer composting households were recruited to participate in the project. They received personalized compost coaching and then weighed their composted household organic waste and yard trimmings for 11 months. Based on the results of the study, the NSRP was able to calculate that each year between 8,400 and 10,500 metric tons of single-family organic materials are generated but never placed at the curb for collection. This rivals the 10,700 metric tons of yard trimmings that were collected last year in the residential weekly yard trimmings collection program. Without backyard composting, North Shore municipalities would require an additional 1,500 truck trips to the transfer station for which they would be charged almost $875,000 in tipping fees alone each year. The North Shore does not currently include backyard composting in the calculation of its single-family diversion rate. When backyard composting is factored in, the North Shores diversion rate jumps from 59.5 percent to 66.8 percent. At its June conference, the Recycling Council of British Columbia awarded the NSRP the Public Sector award for this groundbreaking research. The full report can be downloaded from the NSRPs Web site at www.nsrp.bc.ca.

Figure 2: Recycling, garbage and yard trimmings set out for curbside collection. Photo courtesy of Amanda Vantol.

standard 20-gallon capacity), while there is no limit on yard trimmings collection except in the District of North Vancouver, which has a six-item limit. Yard trimmings must be placed in either standard 20-gallon garbage cans with lids (properly identified with a Yard Trimmings decal), a 20-gallon Kraft paper yard trimmings bag or 3' x 1' bundles of branches. Garbage and yard trimmings collection in the City of North Vancouver and District of West Vancouver is manual while in the District of North Vancouver they have both manual and semi-automated collection. About 75 percent of the homes in the District of North Vancouver have either 60 or 96-gallon carts but residents must still abide by the 20-gallon per week limit for garbage. All single-family garbage collected from North Shore residences is taken to the North Shore Transfer Station in North Vancouver where it is then loaded into transfer trailers for hauling to either the waste-toenergy facility or the Vancouver Landfill. Tipping fees are now $97 per metric ton. The yard trimmings also go to the North Shore Transfer Station but to a separate paved area where they are consolidated with yard trimmings and clean wood waste dropped off by residents and landscapers and taken to Fraser Richmond Soil & Fibre in the nearby City of Richmond for composting. The tipping fee for yard trimmings is $63 per metric ton.

Community Outreach
The NSRP has been widely recognized as an innovator in developing and delivering communitybased programs that work directly with residents to reduce the volume of garbage going for disposal. Lynch explains, Our main focus in 2010 was an emphasis on

promoting the treatment of organics at home rather than putting them out at the curb for collection because this avoids the high costs of collection and processing of yard trimmings (see Research Project sidebar). In addition, the NSRP offers a number of programs to help residents including: The subsidized sale of backyard composters and compost turning tools Compost coaching in which NSRP staff go to residents homes to provide personalized assistance on how to compost properly How-to-videos on backyard composting (written and produced by NSRP staff) Spring and Fall GardenSmart workshops Community events and displays on Composting in Bear Country (black bears are a problem on the North Shore) Natural Garden Parties where North and West Vancouver residents have the opportunity to host an informative, casual natural gardening workshop right in their own backyard. Elementary school programs are also a very important part of our outreach approach, emphasizes Lynch. Mission: Zero Waste is a school-wide waste reduction program for North Shore Elementary Schools. This fun and hands-on program motivates children to take steps towards creating a zero waste community. From the initial staff meeting to final assembly, Mission: Zero Waste takes about seven weeks and has proven to be extremely successful and rewarding. In 2010, SWANA awarded the NSRP with a Gold Excellence Medal in Public Education for the Mission: Zero Waste program. The NSRP has also developed a handy portable Zero

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Waste Station (see Figure 3) to support waste reduction in the community. Any North Shore community group can now reduce the amount of waste their small community events create by borrowing a Zero Waste Station. There is no cost to the program, outside of a $200 deposit to secure the Station(s), Lynch points out. He says the Zero Waste Station is best suited for small events (between 20 and 500 people); however, organizers of larger events are welcome to apply to borrow the Zero Waste Station to supplement existing recycling bins. NSRPs other community outreach initiatives include waste audits for libraries and city halls, Request-aSpeaker (where local groups can call the NSRP and ask for someone to speak on a variety of waste reduction and recycling topics), community events (such as festivals, home shows, etc.) and high school composting support. The NSRP has also been very successful in obtaining corporate sponsorship, which helps to keep costs lower for taxpayers. The North Shore Credit Union sponsors the blue box and an eco-friendly hybrid car, the North Shore News sponsors the Yellow Bag for mixed paper, Prudential Sussex Realty sponsors the Blue Bag for newspapers and Re/Max Crest Realty sponsors the multi-family blue bag (used by MF residents to store and transport their recyclables to the centrally-located recycling carts).

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Figure 3: Laura Krohn uses North Shore Recycling Programs Zero Waste Station at a community event. Photo courtesy of Lisa Parker.

In addition, the NSRP has partnerships with the Lynn Canyon Ecology Centre, the Edible Garden Project, the North Shore Black Bear Society and Block Watch. They are our partners in our GardenSmart Workshop series, our Natural Garden Parties and other community events, says Lynch. Despite being a tri-municipal government agency, the NSRP is very independent when it comes to communications. They create most everything in-house including: Web site design and updates Strong presence with social networks such as Facebook and Twitter
WasteAdvantage Magazine July 2011
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As Seen In
The North Shore recycling Program: equipping residents with the right recycling Knowledge and resources
Writing releases, articles and opinion pieces for local media Designing and publishing newspaper ads, informational flyers, guides, event posters and flyers Designing, editing and publishing the annual solid waste collection calendars for all three municipalities Monthly GardenSmart e-newslettera free monthly listing of environmental sustainability, waste reduction and natural gardening events and initiatives on the North Shore sent out to more than 1,600 residents each month scraps, he explains. Negotiations are currently underway and the NSRP is hopeful that single-family food scraps collection can begin later this year or early in 2012. The Advantage in the Metro Vancouver, like many other large metropolitan areas WasteNorth America, of Industry has adopted a Zero Waste philosophy and, in Metros case, it is called the Zero Waste Challenge. One of the targets of Metro Vancouvers new Integrated Solid Waste and Resource Management Plan is to increase the regional diversion rate from an average of 55 percent to a minimum of 70 percent by 2015 and an aspirational target of achieving 80 percent by 2020. This is definitely a challenge as it means more diversion will have to come from the commercial, ICI and DLC sectors. Traditionally, municipalities have only been responsible for recycling and waste reduction activities in the residential sector. Metro Vancouver is now putting pressure on the municipalities to become much more involved in the other sectors both from both a regulatory and enforcement perspective, says Lynch. He points out that, currently, the hottest issue is the provincial governments recent decision to require producers and retailers to design a plan to collect all packaging and printed papers from consumers. British Columbia is already one of the most progressive jurisdictions in North America with a multitude of Extended Producer Responsibility Programs (EPR) that include products such as beverage containers, paints, pesticides, tires, batteries, pharmaceuticals, electronics, used oil and oil filters, etc., says Lynch. This new EPR initiative, which is to be in place by 2014, will shift the responsibility for collecting newspapers, mixed paper, cans and bottles, and virtually everything else that now goes into municipal blue box programs onto product producers. The EPR program for these materials will alter the role of local government in managing recyclable materials and calls into question what will happen with existing municipal contracts for collection and processing and, for those municipalities that do their own collection, compensation for their investment in trucks, containers and recycling depots. While the NSRP is in favor of shifting the costs of collecting and processing packaging and printed papers from taxpayers to producers and consumers, there are concerns about the administration of any residential collection system that is not overseen by local government. There are also questions about the funding of municipal outreach programs. However, Lynch is optimistic that all of the parties involved will work together to design an EPR program that will be beneficial to all.

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Waste Reduction Challenges

Working with three local governments is not without its challenges. Major projects and recycling contract awards require Lynch to appear before all three municipal councils. Given that all three municipalities must agree on contract awards and policy, there have been times in the past when it has been touch and go as to whether or not Lynch would get the approval of all three. While the economy has been relatively strong in the Vancouver area, there is always pressure to keep taxes down and it is often difficult to move forward with new waste reduction and recycling programs when they are competing with other municipal priorities. Lynch says that one of the biggest challenges facing the NSRP and its three municipal governments is the collection of single-family food scraps. While a number of other local municipalities have already added food scraps to their weekly yard trimmings collection programs, the NSRP is still waiting for the necessary capital improvements to the North Shore Transfer Station to allow for addition of food

Future Plans
This year, the NSRP will focus its efforts in two main areas: organics and multi-family recycling. The three North Shore municipalities will be adding food scraps to the yard trimmings collection program in the near future so they will be conducting an intensive research study and program plan to ensure that they are well prepared for the launch of the program. With respect to multi-family, while the NSRP program is already wellentrenched, there will be a concentrated effort this year to research and develop a community-based social marketing program plan to overcome the remaining challenges and barriers and to improve participation and increase diversion of recyclables, says Lynch. The NSRP has one of the highest diversion rates in the Metro Vancouver area and this could not have been achieved without the outstanding efforts of its staff. All of them have been instrumental in our getting to where we are today. | WA For more information, contact NSRP Manager, Allen Lynch, at (604) 984-9730 allen@nsrp.bc.ca.
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2011 Waste Advantage Magazine, All Rights Reserved. Reprinted from Waste Advantage Magazine. Contents cannot be reprinted without permission from the publisher.