The Alberni-Clayoquot Regional District has proposed a ban on the disposal of recyclable corrugated commercial cardboard at the Tofino-Ucluelet West Coast Landfill.
The change will save valuable landfill space for future generations, according to ACRD manager of environmental services Andrew McGifford.
“If you didn’t have a landfill and you had to take this material elsewhere, you’d be shipping it out,” McGifford said adding the cardboard ban would extend the life of the West Coast Landfill. “We have this asset here that has 60 more years left and, if we use up this asset in the next 60 years, the generations after us won’t have that asset sitting there.”
If approved by the West Coast committee and board in June, the commercial cardboard ban would take effect July 1, 2017.
A six-month educational period would follow the initial launch of the program.
“We’re not going to start charging any surcharges or what not, but we’ll identify the material that’s going into the landfill and say, ‘If you continue to bring this product out here you would be charged a surcharge,’” McGifford said.
Surcharges would roll out in January of 2018 and take full effect July 1, 2018.
“At that point, if you continue to put cardboard in your waste, you will be charged as if your whole waste is cardboard and that would be $300 per tonne,” McGifford said.
“Right now, there is no deterrent to actually take that material out. It gets treated the same as any other waste. So you can landfill it. There is a program offered by the contractor to pick up that material locally, but right now there is no deterrent so we want to make that change.”
West Coast locals attended an informational meeting at the Ucluelet Community Centre on May 18 where several business solutions to divert cardboard from the landfill were offered.
“I would suggest, as a solution, that people pick up one of those seven-by-seven garden sheds and have a storage area because its gotta stay dry,” said Sonbird Refuse and Recycling owner Chris Bird at the meeting. He said Sonbird could then pick up the stockpiled cardboard for a $15 base fee or businesses owners could drive the cardboard to the Tofino or Ucluelet recycling depots.
The West Coast Landfill is the only landfill on Vancouver Island that has yet to impose a ban on commercial cardboard. Port Alberni made the change in 2015 and, according to McGifford, the town has virtually 100 per cent compliance amongst businesses.
“Recycling one tonne of corrugated cardboard will save approximately seven cubic metres of landfill space,” McGifford said.
He explained that recycling cardboard also reduces the green house gas emissions of the landfill and reduces the demand for virgin timber.