STAY CONNECTED: Have the stories that matter most delivered every night to your email inbox. Subscribe to our daily local news wrap.

Nanaimo Recycling Exchange hosts curious U.S. environmental reps

Sep 2, 2017 | 1:25 PM

NANAIMO — The Nanaimo Recycling Exchange were called on as a resource to help the United States earlier this week.

Jan Hastings, executive director of the Exchange, told NanaimoNewsNOW the U.S. representatives visited Nanaimo on Monday, Aug. 28 as part of a two-day tour.

Specifically, Hastings spoke about the province’s extended producer responsibility program, which puts the cost of disposing items such as paint cans and pesticides on the producer, rather than the depot recycling or getting rid of the product. It’s common in B.C. and Ontario but more uncommon in Canada and the states of Oregon, Idaho, Alaska and Washington do not. 

“They came here to learn what these programs are but also to learn what it means at the depot level and what it means to manage them all.”

Hastings said it’s a successful program in B.C. and accounts for roughly 30 per cent of goods at the Nanaimo Recycling Exchange.

“For something like paint and pesticides, it really means they’re going to keep it out of the landfill, it’s going to be collected and properly dealt with.” She said it’s far more successful than putting these items at the side of the curb and having households deal with it.

Hastings said it’s an asset the U.S. is working to implement extended producer responsibility programs now since they can build off more than a decade of work in Canada.

“They’re lucky they’re starting fresh. I told them if we were to do it all over again, here’s what the program should look like. They have the benefit of lessons learned.”

The main lesson Hastings said she’d learned was to make all the programs for recycling and disposal similar. Since various programs all started at different times, she said there’s different restrictions or rules which sometimes causes confusion and difficulties.

A note from Viccy Salazar, a representative for the Environmental Protection Agency in the U.S., said they were “inspired and humbled” to see the knowledge on display at Nanaimo’s site during the tour.

It’s expected the Environmental Protection Agency will call on Nanaimo’s Recycling Exchange again in early October.

 

spencer@nanaimonewsnow.com

On Twitter: @spencer_sterrit