The RDEK is providing up to $281,600 for the City of Kimberley to purchase 3,200 recycling carts for the municipality’s implementation of curbside recycling later this year.
Funding for the recycling carts is being utilized from the Regional District of East Kootenay’s reserve account within the Central Solid Waste service, meaning there will be no impact on taxpayers.
“We salute the City for implementing a curbside program and are pleased to support these efforts by providing a grant to help offset some of the initial infrastructure costs associated with getting the service up and running,” said Rob Gay, Chair of the RDEK Board. “The introduction of curbside recycling will not only increase convenience for residents, but will also move a significant volume of material from the yellow bin system into the Recycle BC program, which will reduce costs for the whole Central Subregion.”
The RDEK said Recycle BC has been reaching out to communities across British Columbia who provide curbside waste collection, offering funding if they were to also move into curbside recycling. Recycle BC’s proposal would compensate the communities for each residence service, helping offset operational costs of the service.
Currently, the Yellow Bin Program has the RDEK paying for each tonne recycled. By implementing curbside collection in Kimberley, the regional district anticipates savings of about $81,000 a year just from reduced material in the yellow bins.
“This is a significant, positive step forward and, at the end of the day, we hope will further reduce the amount of material being landfilled,” said Gay.
A recent waste audit by the regional district found that up to 19% of waste sent to the landfill could have been recycled through their Recycle BC Depots or the Yellow Bin Program.
The City of Kimberley is hoping to launch its curbside recycling service later on in 2021.
The RDEK provided a similar grant to the City of Cranbrook in July 2020, as Cranbrook gets set to implement curbside collection in early May.
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