in recycled glass new Brunswick Wasn’t always possible.
By 2020, glass The jar and container ended up in a landfill. This is some Oromocto-Lincoln MLA Mary Wilson heard a lot when he started door-knocking during his bid for office in 2018.
“People were asking me why they can’t recycle the glass,” she said in an interview on Saturday. “Among other things, they were concerned about the glass.”
New Brunswick was one of the few provinces unable to offer glass recycling, despite the existence of Ryan Environmental Solutions in Moncton, which serves all of Atlantic Canada.
Wilson said she had engaged with then-minister Jeff Carr on how they could get the ball rolling on the recycling programme.
Tri-R accepts redemption glasses as part of a program the province is hoping to expand.
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Wilson said, “As it turned out Rayon Environmental (Solutions) in Moncton … reached out to the city of Oromocto because they got a lot of calls from residents here who wanted to know how they could recycle their glass.” “
The province and 31 private recycling facilities began the collection process three years ago, and the province is hoping to increase that to all 70 redemption centers in the province.
One of the first locations to sign was the Tri-R Redemption in Oromocto.
David McCarthy, Resource Recovery’s technical manager for facilities in the area, said that once the beverage bottle program was implemented, redemption centers became overwhelmed and glass jars and containers fell by the wayside.
According to the government, since its inception, the program has been able to divert 101 tons of glass from landfills.
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“It’s a lot of glass, I’ve seen what happens and we’re only doing it in 31 places and I can imagine what’s still out there but it’s certainly changing a lot from landfill,” McCarthy said in an interview on Saturday.
The most important thing to remember, McCarthy said, is that there are requirements for the glass to be dropped. The lid must be removed and the liquid and food inside must be thoroughly cleaned. Labels can remain.
Anything that comes in and doesn’t follow those rules gets thrown away. Once the glass is collected, it is sent to the RES to be crushed.
“And then you know, re-used, like fiberglass, stuff like that. It’s not usually re-used for glass jars, it’s used for some other product, McCarthy said.
The Department for the Environment and Climate Change said it is working on a solid waste plan to connect the remaining 39 locations, but could not provide a timeline for when this would happen.
Deputy minister Heidi Liston told a legislative committee that getting recycling depots on board could be difficult because the centers receive no compensation for recycling glass.
“We anticipate that we’re going to maintain access around the province,” Liston said Tuesday.
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