Emterra and Langley, BC Municipality Test of Plastics Waste Recycling Program a Success

May 23, 2012 - PRLog -- A recycling initiative in the City of Langley to test the recycling and collection of plastic bags, overwrap, foam containers and foam cushion packaging has concluded and results indicate that residents of the municipality are willing to contribute these materials to the recycling mix.

“We were pretty happy with the way Langley City residents in the test areas participated in the project,” said Craig Foster, Canadian Plastics Industry Association (CPIA). “The cooperation was fantastic and we want to thank those who participated for working with us.”

This first-of-its-kind recycling test in BC by the City and Emterra Environmental, a leading Canadian waste management company, involved collecting information on how blue recycling bags worked to contain the plastic materials as they were collected at the curb by waste collection trucks where they were compressed and then transported to Emterra Environmental’s Surrey material recovery facility (MRF) for sorting.

Throughout the three-month test, audits of the contents of the blue bags, regular recycling and garbage bags added to the information gathered about how people responded to the request to recycle the materials. The audits measured how much of the materials were recycled, compared to what remained in the garbage, and whether the materials were prepared for recycling the way the sponsors asked.

“When we looked at the blue bags of material that we brought to Emterra’s MRF at Surrey for processing and recycling, there’s no doubt that many people worked hard to give us what we asked for. For example, some of the foam containers were absolutely clean and stacked to save space. It doesn’t get much better than that. It’s exactly what the end markets love to get,” said Nevil Davies, Emterra Environmental’s General Manager for the BC mainland.

Ordinarily, plastic bags, overwrap, foam containers and foam cushion packaging are not accepted in Langley’s recycling program; however, this three-month exception was permitted in order to determine if curbside collection can work for these materials sometime in the future.

“The City of Langley is proud to have been chosen as the host for this test project,” said Mayor Peter Fassbender. “We’ve always been proud of our waste diversion program and this showcases the City’s desire to be a leader when it comes to recycling.”

In the coming weeks, the information collected over the 12-week project will be compiled into a report that will help shape a future province-wide program to collect and recycle the plastic materials. Further information will be put on the Emterra Group website at http://www.emterra.ca later this spring.

In addition to Emterra Environmental, CPIA and the City of Langley, the other partners in this project are CKF Inc., Layfield Flexible Packaging and W. Ralston (Canada).