Circular Material CEO Allen Longdan has more than 15 years of experience in managing waste collections.
On Jan. 8, myFM got the opportunity to speak with the nonprofit Circular Materials CEO, Allen Langdon, to hear more about how he and the team at Circular Materials plan on improving Ontario’s recycling system.
Effective Jan. 1, Circular Materials became the manager of waste collections province-wide, which is why Renfrew residents may be experiencing changes to their curbside pickup routine.
While Circular Materials’ Ontario branch is quite new the consortium also has branches in other provinces and territories including Alberta, Yukon, New Brunswick and Nova Scotia.
Langdon is optimistic about applying his industry knowledge to his biggest challenge yet.
One of the big changes Circular Materials brought to Renfrew was putting Miller Waste in charge of recycling pickup which also may have affected the pickup schedule depending on the location of the residence.
Renfrew’s current waste collection coverage | Photo Credit: Town of Renfrew
Langdon said Miller was selected for Renfrew because of their proven track record.
This new system is based on a “producer-responsibility” model, meaning corporations that manufacture and sell products with recyclable materials must pay dues to Circular Materials.
Langdon said the biggest waste contributors are retailers, consumer goods producers and quick-service restaurants which make up a big portion of the payments Circular Materials recieves.
Those payments are how Circular Materials funds their program which takes away spending from the municipalities.
However, nothing in life is free.
This plan does not include pickup for non-residential properties including businesses.
According to Langdon, this was due to producers not being required to pay anything on waste collected from non-residential properties.
Circular Materials also can’t accept the waste because the amount owing for producers is based off weight measurements in tonnage that Circular receives from the collector.
The addition of non-residential into the mix would scramble the numbers Circular has been basing their collection model on.
Langdon said the prospect of commercial recycling pickup was discussed during summer delegations between Circular, the producers, the provincial government and local municipalities.
However, the producers would not pay for commercial recycling and Circular Materials said they don’t have the capacity to include commercial pickup.
As a result the Town of Renfrew had to make a separate $106,000 agreement with Miller Waste to include curbside pickup for commercial space, including for businesses along the downtown core.
The Association of Municipalities of Ontario (AMO) said “little emphasis has been placed on industrial, commercial and institutional (ICI) waste despite representing a larger amount of materials.”
Renfrew’s manager of environmental services, Amanda Springer, said she agrees with AMO’s statement and highlights that Renfrew has a higher percentage of ICI properties compared to the provincial average.
Circular Materials said ICI properties make up about 2 per cent of property space in the average Ontario community.
However, according to Springer and the Municipal Property Assessment Corporation, Renfrew’s ICI properties take up about 8 per cent of the local share, four-times greater than Circular’s calculation.
(Written by Mik Horvath)
