Curbside recycling collection is on hold in Halfmoon Bay and Roberts Creek until Multi Material B.C. (MMBC) gets enough buy-in from members to foot the bill.
Originally the Sunshine Coast Regional District (SCRD) signed on to the MMBC program in 2013 saying the SCRD would provide the curbside pickup and in turn receive a financial incentive from MMBC.
Curbside pickup was supposed to begin by the fall of 2014, but after a request for proposals (RFP) was issued, the SCRD realized it would be too costly to fund the service. Even with the MMBC financial incentive, users would have to pay for the curbside pickup to make it viable.
For that reason the SCRD board “cancelled the RFP, declined the MMBC financial incentive, and requested that MMBC provide the service, which would be 100 per cent funded by MMBC,” a recent release from the SCRD stated.
Now the SCRD is looking for a timeline from MMBC to start curbside pickup in Halfmoon Bay and Roberts Creek, but MMBC managing director Allen Langdon said that timing depends solely on more producers of recyclable materials signing on with MMBC.
“The issue for us is we can’t raise more money from our existing members because that would be for the most part subsidizing the businesses that have not yet met their obligations,” Langdon said. “So our members are paying their fair share for the materials they put in the market place and there’s some outstanding businesses that still need to come into the system. When they do, then we will continue to roll out implementation.”
