Fundy region puts curbside recycling plans on hold

The Fundy Regional Service Commission is putting plans for improvements, such as curbside recycling on hold, until the provincial government adopts a system where industries pays to recycle their own waste.

The commission's large recycling blue bins and compost facility require millions of dollars in replacement and upgrade costs.

"Basically, our blue bins are beyond repair," said Marc MacLeod, the general manager of Crane Mountain Landfill.

"We did have one collapse and that started this whole process."

Last fall, the commission was asked to choose between repairing the blue bins or adding curbside recycling.

Neither option received enough support and on Tuesday, the commission unanimously voted in favour of keeping the current system and waiting for provincial producer-pay regulations to come in to effect.

"If it's no cost to the taxpayer and it's industry, well if it takes two, three years to wait for it, I'll wait," said Quispamsis Mayor Murray Driscoll.

Recycle NB is advocating for a province-wide extended producer responsibility system where companies would pay to recycle packaging and paper they generate. The target date to have such a system in place is 2020.

Grand Bay-Westfield Mayor Grace Losier said Recycle NB should take the lead in getting such a system operating.

"We have to allow them to be the first person, there's negotiations that have to take place with industry and legislation is needed for this to occur," said Losier.

The service commission will have to find an extra $250,000 a year to replace the worst blue bins and keep the operation going.

The 2020 timeline appears debatable.

A similar program to have companies deal with electronic waste still hasn't been finalized in the province and MacLeod said that push started eight years ago.