Curbside recycling coming to southwest New Brunswick

Twenty-eight communities in southwest New Brunswick will soon be swapping their recycling depots for a "more environmentally friendly, cost-effective" curbside system, the chair of the Southwest New Brunswick Service Commission said on Tuesday.

The commission, which takes in the region from Lepreau to St. Stephen, and up to McAdam and Harvey, made the decision last month to move to curbside pickup.

"The model makes it so easy for people to recycle," chair Joyce Wright said in an interview with Information Morning Saint John.

"They don't have to sort anything, they don't have to make a trip, they don't have to put it in the trunk of the car and remember the next six times they've gone to the store that they have to drop it off."

Alternating schedule

The new system follows the model used by the Miramichi Regional Service Commission, said Wright.

Households in the region, both rural and municipal, will receive a large, blue recycling bin on wheels.

All eligible recyclables will be put in the bins unsorted. Then, on the day of pickup, residents will roll the bin to the curb or road, and the haulers will empty the bins.

The plan is to adopt an alternating schedule with their current haulers, said Wright, so one week they will pick up regular garbage, and the next week they will empty the bins of recyclables.

Improved waste-diversion rates

The Miramichi commission went from a four per cent diversion rate under the drop-off system, to a 12 per cent rate in its first year of operating the curbside program.

"We feel it's absolutely doable, and we're excited to move ahead with it," Wright said.

The current depot model costs the southwest commission over $400,000 per year. Wright expects the curbside program will save money, or at least be a "revenue neutral system," and extend the life of the landfill site at Hemlock Knoll.

We have more contamination at depots requiring more sorting on our end.- Brenda MacCallum, Fundy Region Solid Waste Commission

"Not only are we eliminating the capital and operating costs associated with the current extra pickups from the large bins … but we are also able to eliminate sorting costs with this new program." Wright said in a letter to residents.

The recyclables will be shipped to a sorting facility in Quebec.

The commission represents the villages of McAdam, Blacks Harbour, Grand Manan and Harvey, the towns of St. Andrews, St. Stephen, and St. George, the rural community of Campobello Island, and 20 local service districts. Wright says the program will be available to the majority of households in the region. 

The program is expected to roll out by next fall.

Status quo in Saint John

Other communities in southern New Brunswick have already made the switch to curbside recycling.

The towns of Rothesay and Quispamsis phased out their community drop–off depots over the last two years, opting for separate, town-wide collection systems.

But in Saint John, residents continue to bring their recyclable to blue bins placed throughout the city.

Moving to a curbside program would present additional costs for the city, which already runs home compost and garbage pickup, said Brenda MacCallum, program development and public relations officer for the Fundy Region Solid Waste Commission.

"And that falls on the back of the municipality to add that full additional cost," MacCallum said. "And that's a big price tag."

It would also leave out small businesses and apartments of five units or more that currently take advantage of the depot program.

'We would welcome it'

But MacCallum said there are advantages to moving to a curbside system.

"We would welcome it, the material that does come in from Quispamsis and Rothesay comes in very clean, with very little contamination," she said.

"We have more contamination at depots requiring more sorting on our end … and from what we hear, there's a high percentage of people taking part in the program."

But given Saint John's grim financial outlook for 2018 and beyond, MacCallum doesn't expect Saint John will change course soon.

"The issue hasn't come forward at the commission level," she said.

"Recycling doesn't earn money. It is a cost."