Some residents of multi-family buildings in Greater Victoria may have noticed a new addition alongside their usual waste bins.
The Capital Region is one of two spots in B.C. where Recycle BC has started to provide dedicated collection bins for flexible plastics. Those materials – which include plastic bags, crinkly wrappers, zipper-lock packages and more – could previously be recycled in B.C., but had to be taken to collection depots or other businesses that accepted them.
Recycle BC hopes providing bins to people at their homes will boost the recovery rate of flexible plastic, which currently sits at just 20 per cent.
"We want to increase convenience for residents and are exploring home-based collection methods for flexible plastics in addition to our network of over 250 depots around the province, where flexible plastics can continue to be dropped off, to collect more of the material for recycling," the organization told Black Press Media.
A pilot study in West Vancouver indicated that flexible plastics are recycled at a much higher rate when they're collected straight from people's homes, Recycle BC said.
The bin program began at the start of August for "a number" of multi-family residential buildings in the Capital Regional District. West Vancouver will also have bins for the material – also known as soft plastics – at all multi-family buildings this year. Recycle BC aims to learn from these early initiatives and will look to provide the service in more communities in the future.
Multi-unit buildings and all households with curbside collection in Maple Ridge will be added to the program in 2025. There's no word on when the program may be extended to single-family homes across Greater Victoria.
While it's pleased the added collection option is being looked at, Zero Waste BC said the program should be rapidly sped up because Recycle BC has already been obligated to pick up recyclables from people's homes for a decade.
“Recycle BC is not meeting it’s obligations to provide these services to communities,” Zero Waste BC’s Sue Maxwell said in a statement.
The waste reduction advocacy group added that Recycle BC should only be collecting plastic that can truly be recycled, and then be working to eliminate the use of that material that can’t be.
“Some of the flexible plastic materials currently collected are essentially an allowable contamination level in the plastics recycling stream, not a truly valued material,” Maxwell said. "We hope that with the global focus on plastics and the deeper knowledge we have of them, Recycle BC, as well as other entities, will work hard to decrease our use of plastics, switch back to more sustainable systems like reuse and refill, and eliminate harmful plastics."
Recycle BC said flexible plastics have been difficult to process as they've historically been made from a mix of many different kinds of plastics, specialty layers and coatings.
The recovery rate of flexible plastics hit a five-year low last year, according to Recycle BC's 2023 annual report. Current recovery rates refer to the percentage of material collected in 2023 based on how much of that product was supplied to B.C. residents in 2021. The most recent annual report states there were 25,658 tonnes of flexible plastics supplied in B.C. and 5,206 tonnes got collected last year.
The agency noted flexible plastics will require larger increases in collection rates compared to other materials.
"Recycle BC continues to lead North America in the collection and recycling of flexible plastics and has identified household collection of this material type as a critical step in achieving our collection targets," the organization said.
Soft plastics that do get collected are sent to the Lower Mainland-based Merlin Plastics, where the materials get turned into plastic pellets that can be used for a wide range of manufacturing applications, Recycle BC said.
