Municipal Perspective on Blue Box Packaging

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Municipal Perspective on Blue Box Packaging

• Dave Faris Yousif
• City of Hamilton

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Municipal Perspective

• Municipal waste management is an important stop
  in the life cycle of packaging (Packager Brand
  Owner Retailer Municipality Reprocessor)
• Municipalities provide a public waste management
  service to our residents
• Municipalities are not a barrier to success for
  industry
• Municipalities want to increase diversion rates
  BUT..

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Acceptance of New Materials

• Regulatory requirement
• E.g. EPA Ontario Regulation
• 101/94
• Markets
• Strong, positive sustainable market
• Consistency triple bottom line
• Cost benefit
• Do the benefits of recycling a package outweigh
  costs?

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• Diversion goals
• Will recycling package help with diversion goals
• Landfill access
• No landfill or challenging access may encourage
  acceptance
• The opposite is true as well

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• MRF sorting
• Availability of automated equipment to sort new
  package vs. manual sortation
• Downstream impact of package at the MRF
• Impact to sorting and value of finished bales

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• Available volume/tonnes
• Volume/tonnes dictate level of investment
• Environmental or social demand
• E.g. polystyrene expensive to recycle but takes
  up valuable landfill space

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Resident Communications

• MRF challenges can be overcome by instructing
  residents to take a few steps to separate
  packaging materials

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Municipal Perspective and Industry

• Municipalities want to work with industry
  before packaging ends up on the retail shelf
• No Surprises
• When we work together
• Blueberry containers
• Water bottle over-wrap and OCC bottom
• Compostable chewing gum containers

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• Contact Info
• Dave Faris Yousif
• Project Manager-MRF
• City of Hamilton
• 905-546-2424 ext. 3619
• david.yousif_at_hamilton.ca