Region readying for recycling changes

While most of us should not notice any difference, residential recycling collection will change next year.

Belleville, Quinte West, Prince Edward County, Stirling-Rawdon, Marmora and Lake, Centre Hastings, Madoc Township, Tweed and Tyendinaga Township came together in 1990 to form the not-for-profit Quinte Waste Solutions to manage recycling in the region.

However, the province is transitioning the responsibility for recycling to extended producer responsibility meaning the businesses that sell packaging and paper products to consumers will be financially and operationally responsible for collecting, processing and recycling those materials.

Quinte Waste Solutions General Manager Bill Sandison says the extended producers will be responsible for eligible source material recycling.

“So that includes, you know, all single-unit residences, multi-units, so that would be condominiums and apartments. They’ve also got responsibility for schools, long-term care homes, provided they’re not for profit.”

The extended producers have partnered with Circular Materials Ontario.

“They are the ones, Circular Material, that are organizing and arranging for the transition. They’re awarding the contracts to the various collectors of the material as well as where the material is gonna be held.”

Sandison says this change is aimed at creating a circular economy.

“We’re taking the municipalities out of that loop as it circles back to each of the producers so that hopefully that will create some behavioural changes in the producers to look for more environmentally friendly solutions, especially when it comes to packaging.”

He adds that the state-of-the-art facilities being built will also be able to recycle more complex materials meaning that the list of acceptable items for your blue box will expand in the future, further reducing waste.

Many of Ontario’s 444 municipalities have already made the switch to the new system with the deadline for the transition being the end of 2025.

Sandison says they’ve set a deadline of July 17, 2025 to transition.

The shift should be seamless and residents will still put out their blue boxes as usual come July 18.

The big changes come after pick-up.

Currently recycled material is received and sorted at the Material Recycling Facility (MRF) at 270 West Street in Quinte West.

However, under the new system, material will instead be taken to a transfer station operated by HGC Management on Station Street in Belleville.

It will then be sent to a Material Recycling Facility that is yet to be determined though Sandison believes it will end up at Waste Management’s Napanee Waste Solutions Transfer Station that is currently under construction and is scheduled to be completed by the end of next year.

That facility, along with a twinned site in Waterloo, will be able to process approximately 30 per cent of Ontario’s blue box recycling.

Sandison says local municipalities must still figure out what to do for non-eligible material from industrial, commercial and institutional entities like businesses, municipal buildings and hospitals.

“Because the non-eligible doesn’t fit into the umbrella, each of the municipalities are looking to a) continue the service to those that receive the service today and they’re working on it now. So no decision’s been made.”

Belleville and Quinte West are leading the probe into alternate solutions.

The change in recycling model will save municipalities money.

Each of the nine municipalities contribute financially to run Quinte Waste Solutions with Belleville and Quinte West each responsible for approximately 30 per cent of the annual budget, Prince Edward County contributing about 20 per cent and the balance spread across the other six municipalities.

Sandison says Quinte Waste Solutions had a 2024 budget of $5.3 million and the board has passed a 2025 budget that is 40 per cent less, $3 million since the transition is scheduled for mid-July.

Individual municipalities must still grant approval to the 2025 budget but Sandison hopes that is a formality given the reduction.

Sandison says they have already begun to reduce staff at the MRF facility in anticipation of the July transition at which time Quinte Waste Solutions will basically shut down.

The number of employees at the Quinte West sorting facility has been reduced from nine to four over the last several months.

Extended Producer Responsiblitiy