Producers soon to recycle batteries, antifreeze
December 27, 2009 by CVNews
Filed under BC news, Business, Environment
B.C. introduces new recycling regulations.
Ministry of Environment.
Antifreeze and lead-acid batteries will be required to be part of producer-led recycling programs as a result of changes to B.C.’s recycling rules, Environment Minister Barry Penner announced today.
The addition of lead-acid batteries and antifreeze to the recycling regulation will require producers to develop, and submit for approval, recycling programs for these products by July 2011. This is the same year manufacturers will be required to add a bittering agent to ethylene glycol antifreeze under the antifreeze regulation, which was approved earlier this year to protect pets and children from the risk of poisoning. Antifreeze containers will also be included in recycling regulations. By July 2011, people will be able to recycle antifreeze and its container as easily as oil, pesticides and paint.
The lead-acid batteries included in the regulation are commonly found in cars, boats, motorcycles and locomotives. Recycling rules for these batteries are being brought into line with other industry-led recycling programs in B.C. Previously, lead-acid batteries were subject to a government-imposed fee which was then available to offset recycling costs faced by processors. With industry-led recycling programs government does not collect fees, although industry may choose to set their own fees to defray costs of recycling.
Recent changes will also make recycling regulations more responsive to the global economic downturn by giving the producers of some electronic, electrical and other products more time to develop and implement recycling programs. For example, producers of small appliances, smoke detectors and the batteries used in these products will have until July 2011 to implement recycling programs. However, for cellphones, pagers, fluorescent light bulbs, residential-use lamps, thermostats and small desktop/portable scanners, fax machines and copy equipment, as well as batteries used in any of those products, recycling plans will have to be approved and in place by July 1, 2010.
Victoria
December 21, 2009
Ministry of Environment
2009ENV0047-000794
Is that a joke? We cannot yet recycle the things already on the list. Maybe in theory, but in practice here in the Nelson area the recycling system is falling apart, going downhill.
For example, RDCK says they recycle HDPE #10, but when asked if that includes HDPE #10 plastic bags the answer is no. But they don’t bother to tell people that. Eventually I found out that if I drive a couple hours I can recycle them at a couple of food businesses with their own recycling systems.
“…as easily as oil, pesticides and paint”? That is definitely a joke, as I have some used motor oil that I cannot find a place to recycle. Some of the local garages burn it for heating their shops – that is the best recycling we have.
Maybe they do have ways and means to recycle these things around here, but if know one knows about it or cannot find out about it, what good does it do?
I have been an ardent recycler for many years, but the number of things I can recycle has been steadily going down – to the point where it is essentially zero now. This is mainly because of the difficulties of finding out exactly what is acceptable and what is not. It is not an easy and accessible system.
Yes, the region has a website that lists things. But it turns out there are a lot of unpublished exceptions. And yes, you can theoretically find out where to recycle things, but I have no idea how or where to find that out.
In my opinion the whole recycling thing is now in shambles. If BC is serious about all it’s goody-goody green colors, why does it not take care of something as fundamental as this? But then, I guess we cannot expect that much from a government bureaucracy that is already in such a sad state of chaos that it is a wonder it can even continue operating. In many cases it apparently cannot and people just walk away.
The whole thing is sad when it would be so easy to make a success story out of this as one practical example of how to tread a bit more lightly on this planet.
Strange, Mi Kai, tires are recycled as are the following: glass bottle, plastic and plastic bottles, paper ,cardboard, paint , pesticides, lumber, clothes, shoes, eye glasses, radios, steel, aluminum, brass, copper, and and and .
It appears you happen to live in the boon docks and have lost touch with what is happening in the real world. All of the above and more are constantly recycled throughout BC.
If your community does not have the facility, I would suppose that there is not enough people in your area where ever, to make the effort meaningful.
If your particular area does not indeed have these services, then start them yourself and do something constructive for yourself rather than whimpering about how big brother has not held your hand again.
If it is such an easy thing ” to make a success story,” then put your mouth and your money where your fingers currently are and do something constructive instead of just whinnning all the time about things you can’t do anything about.
At least this is something that you can actually do something constructive should you choose. But stop with the constant whinnning about the world and how down trodden you are by every one and every thing.
Go and get involved with the world and do something like start a profitable and workable recycle system in your community.
Walter … Here’s a comparison that might help you. There are edible food plants and wild medicinal herbs all around us in the forests for everyone to use. But I bet you don’t use them, right? And I’ll bet one of the main reasons is that, even though they are everywhere, you don’t know the details of exactly where and how to access them. Or else it is just more hassle than it is worth.
And so it is with recycling. Sure there are systems in place. But if they are not accessible because of bureaucratic ineptitude, then practically speaking they may as well not exist – just like those wild plants that few use.
Here is what it’s like to recycle here in Kaslo, in the Regional District of Central Kootenay, where there is — theoretically — a recycling system.
The first step in recycling is to find out where. So I ask around. You are supposed to go to the recycling center. Ok, I go there. There is a big blue steel bin in the yard. I take my stuff up to the bin. Nope, can’t put it in. The sign says it needs to be in blue bags. But there is no information about how or where to get a blue bag. No information whatsoever, not even about the kinds of things that are recyclable. Nada. Just a sign saying blue bags only.
I phone the region, talk to the recycling coordinator. How do I get one of these blue bags. She doesn’t know. You can buy packs of them at Walmart in Nelson. Well, Nelson is over 2 hours return drive and I only need one, not 2 dozen. Where can I get a blue bag in my own community. She doesn’t know.
So I go to the dump. At the dump, I discuss this with the person on duty. She volunteers a couple of blue bags from when they started the blue bag system and were promoting it. First problem solved. I now have a blue bag. Since it was so much trouble to get and I only have two, I am going to make sure it is full before it goes into the big bin. That will probably be a few years. I don’t have a huge amount to recycle, but would still like to recycle what is recyclable.
Fortunately the blue bag has all the types of plastic written right on it. Very handy, except the information is probably out of date.
One of the things I most need to recycle is plastic shopping bags and bags that you buy bulk foods in. I happen to notice that these are HDPE #10 and the blue bag says this type is recyclable. Just to be sure, I go to the region’s website, and sure enough HDPE #10 is recyclable. But plastic bags on not on the list of examples. So I phone the recycling coordinator again. Well, actually, they are NOT recyclable, although the website says they are. I can take them to two different store in Nelson – two hours return drive. That is not going to happen.
Now I am wondering whether the other things I have been saving are actually recyclable. The blue bags says they are. The website says they are — but does not give them as examples. So again I will have to phone the region for each kind to find out.
Now, these are just the ordinary kinds of recycling — mainly plastics. But I also have a few less common things, like motor oil. For every item I am going to have to make a special call to the recycling coordinator to find out.
This is such an incredible hassle, when all they have to do is make complete and accurate information readily available where people can easily find it. But they are not doing that. It is like pulling teeth.
So, sure there is a recycling system here. And sure IN THEORY lots of things can be recycled. But just try to do it. Practically speaking it is such a dysfunctional system that it may as well not exist.
What the politicians and bureaucrats need to understand is that there is a real difference between saying and thinking something exists, and it actually existing and working. In this case the two are not the same. The reality does not match the theory.
It sounds Mi Kai, that the co ordinator is not doing his or her job or at best does not know their job. It sounds like the distribution of information has broken and you can fix it.
Put together a web site that is readable and useable with the relavent information for your community..
But it does go back to what I said in the previous. If it’s broke, fix it yourself and make it work. It does not matter the size of a community, set up a local system that works and then make it co ordinate with the Regional District’s system for every one’s benefit.
Sitting on the side line gripping and whinning does no body any good. Get busy and DO SOMETHING CONSTRUCTIVE.
Turn it into a money making profitable venture yourself and for your community and stop whinning about big brother not holding your hand well enough
Do something as I said before, that is hands on and beneficial instead of whinning and complaining.
It is not the system that has broken but rather the distribution of information.
So go out into the world and make the system work.
Do something to make re cycle work.
Set up a community compost system for Kaslo and run and educate the population about that system.
Run your own re cycle system and make a profit.
DO SOME THING, ANY THING BUT MAKE YOUR COMMUNITY BETTER.
Walter, I agree with you that there is no point in complaining when you can do it for yourself instead. But there are realities and practicalities of scale here. It does not pay me to set up a complete recycling system for one bag of material every few years, now would it?
Many people in this area have been complaining since they removed the previous system — which was reasonably functional — and replaced it with a blue-bag system without the available information that was earlier available. It was so simple before. You’d just go to the recycling center and all the bins were labelled with what goes in them. That way it was easy to know what was acceptable and what was not, or at least a lot more so than now.
And you could recycle any time, without having to make sure some store was open, perhaps a good distance away, where you could buy a blue bag.
This is not just a recycling coordinator problem. It is the whole region and beyond. They seem to have no common sense any more. Even in Nelson, a place of some 10,000 population, many people had to stop recycling when they switched to blue bags, because the logistics did not work. I know of one apartment building that had its own recycling system, which then went to the recycling center. But now they cannot do that, and there is nowhere to store blue bags, so they have abandoned recycling — the whole building.
If we are paying these guys tax money to do this job, then we should expect them to do it properly and should complain if they do not. I somehow doubt that they’d turn over the respective portion of our tax money to us to do it ourselves. And besides, our quantities would be too small to find a market for the materials. So there is really only one option without a major overhaul, and that is to get them to do the job right. But that seems pretty unlikely, as they are still moving in the opposite direction (going downhill).
Walter, when I hear a practical suggestion from you as to how one individual can effectively recycle without a large-scale recycling system, then maybe I will take direct action. But right now it appears that the only direct action possible is to trash my recyclables. And that I will do by depositing them in the big steel bin without a blue bag — making the best guess I can of what might be recyclable — so then they will very likely dispose of it as improperly recycled. And I will have made my point in a small way.
An even better alternative perhaps is to deposit them with a blue bag, but without having any idea what is recyclable and what is not. They will have to go to the extra trouble to either throw it all out, or sort it themselves. If they cannot tell me what is acceptable and what is not, then I will offload that job onto them.
Mai Kai, I have never advocated setting up a recycle system for one (1) but have rather urged you to set up a recycle system that works for your community. Read the blogs.
You are still only complaining and whinning, DO SOMETHING.
I will say again, set a web site up that works. Get the yellow bins back and throw out the useless blue bags which just cause angst.
But DO SOMETHING AND STOP WHINNING
Set up a recycle system that works for your community. Stop complaining about every thing and do some thing positive instead of snivalling all the time.
Go and work with the regional district in a manner that makes sense rather than complaining.
Get the bins back. It works all through the Columbia Valley communities. The folks of Invermere however are willing to take on double taxation for same service in that they too have curb side pick up when they are already paying for their regional district to supply the yellow recycle system built into their taxes. Go figure the herd menatlity there.
But do some thing useful Mai Kai. Do some thing constructive. This is not about you and how you can feel good, but rather how you can make things better for the community as a whole.
But it does mean doing something and working with people and coming up with solutions. Thinking and solving problems for self and community.
Oh my God, that sounds like a business plan !!!!!
Dear Walter, Sorry but I already have more business plans active than I can possibly finish in my lifetime. I am not exactly one to sit back and leave it to others. Sure I could set up a better recycling system, but in the big picture of things (speaking personally) the amount I recycle is so small that it is more effective for the environment to just throw it out.
Do you realize how many resources would be consumed by my organizing a better system? And are there even enough other people who would support something more functional? So many are just sheep who haven’t even bothered to learn where the pasture gate is.
I am not going to build something better for myself alone. Left to my own devices the practical solution is very simple — trash it. Because the total of all my waste combined — trash and recycling — in a year is probably less than yours is in a week. I’m exaggerating of course. It is more like two years to one week if your are anywhere near typical. That is why your suggestion makes no practical sense. And we do need to be practical too, don’t we? (lol)
Maybe in my next life, Walter. This one is already fully booked.
And about your idea of a community composting system… Are you serious? Almost anyone who has access to a few square metres of ground can do their own composting. There is no magic. I don’t even have to turn mine — the deer do that for me