Though not officially a Multi-Material BC (MMBC) recycling depot, GRIPS in Pender Harbour has been trying out the new system since the beginning of June — and the switchover has upset some residents, GRIPS director Joe Harrison said last week.
“It’s a bit of a problem for public relations,” Harrison said. “People are screaming here when they have to take stuff home.”
One woman, he said, indicated she was going to write Sunshine Coast Regional District (SCRD) Area A director Frank Mauro, because she was “dismayed she had to go back home with half her recycling and put it in the garbage.”
Harrison said GRIPS is looking at setting up a separate stream for non-accepted items, a long list that includes paperback and hardcover books, some types of plastic film and all non-residential recycling.
“The problem is, we can’t find anyone to take it because MMBC controls the market,” he said. “At some point we’d be forced to haul it to the landfill. It’s just decidedly odd.”
SCRD waste reduction and recovery manager Jeremy Valeriote said the public had not been notified of the change at GRIPS because MMBC’s contractor was not yet picking up the recycled materials.
Neither GRIPS nor Gibsons Recycling Depot have signed a contract with the SCRD to become official MMBC depots.
On June 20, however, Salish Soils began operating under the MMBC program at its site in East Porpoise Bay, which replaced the SCRD recycling depot on Highway 101 in Sechelt.
At the SCRD’s June 26 board meeting, after deliberating in-camera, the board passed a resolution authorizing the chair and corporate officer to execute a contract with Salish Soils to operate the MMBC depot for $220,800 over the next two years.
