LCBO gives towns money for glass recycling

While the town doesn’t accept glass with its curbside “Blue Box” pick-up, the public has been encouraged to bring their bottles and jars to the blue drop-off bins at the Public Works building on Fifth Street. From there, they are crushed and mixed for road fill.

Elsewhere in the Rainy River District, the Township of Alberton is getting $13, while La Vallee is getting $9. There were no other district municipalities on the LCBO’s list of recipients.

These funds were distributed this week to 165 municipalities across the province according to the number of metric tonnes of glass alcoholic beverage containers collected by each municipality in 2003. The payments are determined by an annual “data call” in which municipalities submit their recycling tonnages and costs to a central data repository.

“We know the ‘Blue Box’ system is the most convenient and cost-effective way to recover LCBO beverage alcohol containers for recycling and we are committed to maintaining this service for consumers with financial support to municipalities to cover recycling costs,” said LCBO chair and CEO Andrew S. Brandt in a press release.

“This support also helps maintain the long-term viability of the ‘Blue Box’ system which is used to recover many other types of containers and materials for recycling,” he added.

In addition to the $4 million in funding to municipalities, the LCBO has designated an additional $1 million to be used for market development and securing sustainable markets for coloured glass collected in “Blue Box” programs.

Since the funding program began in 1998, the LCBO has take a leadership role by contributing $24 million to municipalities to cover alcohol container recycling costs. It will continue this funding commitment by contributing an additional $5 million for this purpose in each of the next four years.

The LCBO is a member of the industry funding organization Stewardship Ontario, which is implementing and operating the “Blue Box Program Plan” approved by the Environment Minister in December 2003.

Under the plan, companies that produce or use packaging materials and/or printed papers destined for the Ontario marketplace and recovered through municipal residential waste management systems contribute 50 percent of the net cots of these recycling systems.

On behalf of the LCBO, Stewardship Ontario is distributing the funds to municipalities.