Sep 25, 2014

Metro Vancouver fined private and municipal trash haulers more than $450,000 last year for having forbidden recyclables in their loads, documents obtained through access-to-information laws show. The surcharges are meant to be a deterrent to haulers dumping items for which there are recycling programs, including corrugated cardboard, yard trimmings and electronics. It is considered haulers’ responsibility to deal with their customers to keep banned items out of the waste stream. Documents released to The Vancouver Sun, over the objection of several haulers, show that Metro Vancouver issued $383,369 in fines last year at regional waste facilities, and $74,298 at the City of Vancouver’s transfer station and landfill in Burns Bog in Delta. Just eight large haulers were responsible for about $315,000 or 82 per cent of the total surcharge fines levied by Metro against 100 companies and agencies involving both residential and commercial trash in 2013. Residential drop-offs, typically pickup trucks and vans, were responsible for $22,511 in surcharges. Paul Henderson, Metro Vancouver’s general manager of solid waste services, said that photos are taken of all loads where a fine is levied, and copies supplied to haulers upon request. There were about 18 disputes from 2010 to 2012; about half the fines were reversed by a senior staff member. He described the ban program “as one of the most comprehensive in North America with seven inspectors participating in the program and over 150,000 loads per year.” Metro Vancouver is working with the Waste Management Association of B.C. to improve the program, including an inspection program manual that details the process for waste haulers, and providing incentives to haulers for implementing source separation programs for commercial customers. Some are zero-tolerance “prohibited items,” such as batteries, electronics, gypsum drywall, paint and tires; even one item results in a minimum $50 fine. The other category is for “banned items,” including corrugated cardboard, recyclable paper, green waste, glass and metal containers, plastics, and beverage containers except for milk cartons. Where these items represent more than five per cent of the load by volume the fine is 50 per cent of the tipping fee — and that can be substantial. For every load fined, recyclable items in about three other loads are removed by the hauler and not subject to fines. Metro Vancouver’s latest waste composition report in 2013 found that compostable organics comprised 36.2 per cent of trash, followed by plastics at 14.4 per cent, and paper at 13.6 per cent, which suggests that the number of fines would be much higher if inspectors could see everything in a load. In Nova Scotia, some municipalities have mandated the use only of clear garbage bags for residences for just that reason. An increasing number of waste companies are choosing to haul outside the region to private waste-transfer stations in Abbotsford, where their trash is transferred to rail facilities in Sumas, Wash., and hauled to a private landfill in the arid Columbia River region. These companies are drawn mainly by cheaper tipping fees — an estimated $70 a tonne in Abbotsford versus $108 in Metro Vancouver. In the process, they also skirt the surcharge fines designed to encourage recycling, Metro Vancouver asserts. Metro Vancouver estimates about 160,000 tonnes of waste will be shipped south through Abbotsford into Washington in 2014 — about 100,000 tonnes of that, or 10,000 truck loads, from Metro Vancouver, up from 50,000 tonnes in 2012. This represents about 20 per cent of the commercial trash collected in the region this year and a loss of about $11 million in tipping fees, the region estimates. “It’s getting worse each year,” Henderson said. “It’s putting our entire sold-waste management plan in jeopardy.” Critics counter that Metro Vancouver wants a monopoly to ensure enough waste stays in the region to feed a planned $470-million waste-to-energy project. The list of prohibited items has grown steadily since 1997, and also includes paint, gypsum, oil, tires, metal appliances, mattresses, plastic, paper, and blue-box recyclables, with organics expected to be included in 2015. Inspections are conducted on about 20 per cent of loads arriving at solid-waste facilities. Metro Vancouver has been waiting since last October for Environment Minister Mary Polak to approve Bylaw 280, which would require that garbage generated in Metro Vancouver be processed at regional facilities. Paul Richard, chair of environmental protection technology at Kwantlen Polytechnic University, has written Polak in support of the bylaw, warning that “the full integrity of the recycling system, from source separation, producer responsibility, organics collection, and other initiatives” stands to be compromised.

Print