May 29, 2009
Recycling fee hits milk
Province imposes repayable container surcharge to improve return rate
The province hopes people will make a change to get some change by recycling milk containers.
Starting Monday, there will be a 10-cent deposit on milk and liquid a containers smaller than one litre and a 25-cent fee on containers larger than one litre.
"This is about reducing the amount of containers that end up in our landfills," said Trevor Gemmell, a spokesman for Alberta Environment.
The province hopes the program, the first of its kind in Canada, will raise the overall beverage container recycling rate to its goal of 85%, up from 76%. Currently, only 60% of milk jugs are recycled and 22.5% of cartons are recycled, said Gemmell.
However, containers eligible for the refund at bottle depots will only be marked and sold starting Monday, meaning any cartons and jugs that Calgarians have stored away will not get cash back as there was no deposit paid on them.
The Alberta Dairy Council has mixed feelings about the move, after having to abandon the recycling system it has used for the last 10 years.
"They felt our recovery rate wasn't meeting their standards. We're definitely disappointed going into this," said ADC president Brian Miller.
"We don't know what this looks like for our customers.
"Hopefully when the price of milk goes up, they keep buying it."
Regardless, Miller said the ADC will do its best to operate under the new system and is hoping the changes will help increase recycling rates.
Leanne Stangeland, a spokeswoman for the Beverage Container Management Board, said though the board is appreciative of the work the ADC has done, but hopes the change "will be more effective ... that's the intent," she said.
Alberta Environment is reminding recyclers that milk jugs should be washed or rinsed before being exchanged.
"Any with a strong odour or residual cream may be rejected by the bottle depot," said Gemmell.
More than two-billion beverage containers are sold in Alberta each year, but about 500 million of them are not recycled.
http://www.calgarysun.com/news/alberta/2009/05/29/9609531-sun.html
