Hot News
We were saddened to learn of the passing of Jon Harris, a long-time Ridge Meadows Recycling Society Board Member.
Jon had always been involved in his community. He lived in Maple Ridge all his life and served on the Maple Ridge Council for 12 years.
He volunteered for the Fire Department, Parks & Leisure, and Scouts Canada. Jon joined the Ridge Meadows Recycling Society after retiring as a way to stay involved in his community.
We will miss him and are thinking of his loved ones at this time.
Jon’s story was profiled in a 2007 BC Notaries publication:
“I think the biggest challenge for our Society is the extremely complicated nature of recycling. It continues to change at a rapid pace as new technology and processes are developed and societal attitudes towards waste reduction shift.
Ridge Meadows Recycling’s biggest strength is its flexibility, the ability to be adaptable and move with the changing times. Part of this ease is due to the strong principles the society is founded on, which guide the Board of Directors when faced with difficult decisions.”
-Jon Harris, 2012
In this newsletter…
- Mark our 2019 Holiday Recycling Pickup Schedule on your calendar (especially if you have recycling pickup on WEDNESDAYS) and check out our 2020 Stat Holiday Calendar.
- Keep your Christmas green by giving experiences instead of gifts, re-using your wrapping paper, and planning to give away leftovers after a big meal. Metro Vancouver has lots of great tips and gift ideas for a variety of budgets on their Merry Memory Maker.
- Check out the next video in our “How to Recycle” video series…
- The next Green Drinks is all about climate-friendly festivities! Join your fellow greenies on Tues, Nov.26 at 6:30pm at Bean Around Books!
- Our LAST Repair Cafe of 2019 is THIS Saturday, November 23 at the Library – bring us your broken (Christmas!) stuff!! PLUS – Repair Cafes will start again on Saturday, February 15, 2020 courtesy of Vancity <3
- We LOVE our volunteers! In this newsletter, meet Repair Cafe volunteer Hannah!
- As always, don’t miss all the amazing events & activities happening in our community, including LOTS of Winter Craft fairs at local Elementary Schools!! #shoplocal #supportourschools!!
Subscribe to our monthly newsletters & get all our recycling updates, news, and tips emailed straight to your inbox! You can unsubscribe at any time.
As you may have heard, one of our trucks caught fire while it was parked in a parking lot during a driver’s break. Thankfully, no one was injured, but the truck is not able to be repaired. We appreciate your understanding and patience as we head toward the busy holiday season.
-Ridge Meadows Recycling Society
November 12, 2019
In this newsletter…
- Shorter days means shorter hours at the Depot…
- Fall Brush Chipping Program Set-out dates and info…
- Want to help plan Earth Day 2020? Get Active & drop by one of our meetings!
- Our next Repair Cafe is on Saturday, September 21 – and we couldn’t do it without our awesome volunteers!
- Green Drinks! Join your fellow greenies Sept.24 at Big Smoke…
- Check out one of 100 Debates on the Environment on October 1 and learn where your federal candidates stand…
- As always, don’t miss all the amazing events & activities happening in our community!
Subscribe to our monthly newsletters & get all our recycling updates, news, and tips emailed straight to your inbox! You can unsubscribe at any time.
In this newsletter…
- The BC government is looking for feedback on its plan to tackle plastic waste
(go directly to the survey)
- Summer Students Bronte & Robert recap their Plastic Free July experience on a livestreamed video
- Kirk Grayson unveils the benefits and value of Green Infrastructure and Natural Asset Management
- Our next Repair Cafe is part of GETI Fest celebrations on Saturday, September 21.
- As always, don’t miss all the amazing events & activities happening in our community!
Subscribe to our monthly newsletters & get all our recycling updates, news, and tips emailed straight to your inbox! You can unsubscribe at any time.
The BC Government is currently seeking feedback on new policy opportunities and proposed Recycling Regulation amendments to address plastic waste (see July 25, 2019 Media Release). (Go directly to survey…)
The four action areas the BC government is proposing in their Plastics Action Plan: Policy Consultation Paper include:
- Bans on Single-Use Packaging:
Determining which types of plastic packaging to phase out altogether, as well as any necessary exemptions, such as those for health, safety and accessibility to keep products available
for the people that need them.
- Dramatically Reduce Single-Use Plastics in Landfills and Waterways:
Requiring producers to take responsibility for more plastic products, ensuring more single-use items like sandwich bags, straws and cutlery get recycled.
- Plastic Bottle and Beverage Container Returns:
Expanding the deposit-refund system to cover all beverage containers – including milk and milk-substitutes – with a 10-cent refundable deposit, keeping millions more containers out of landfills and waterways.
- Reducing Plastics Overall:
Supporting effective ways to prevent plastic waste in the first place and ensuring recycled plastic is re-used effectively
One of the intentions is to create programs that cover many different types of single-use plastic that may not be covered in a future federal plastics ban. It is also a response to the recent BC Supreme Court ruling against the plastic bag ban brought in by the City of Victoria: “The Province is currently reviewing all aspects of the decision and recognizes that local governments need clarity on what their authorities are and the process for acting on those authorities…”
BC also wants to work with the federal government to develop “national recycled content standards to ensure that…any new plastics and packaging produced contain recycled plastic.” This is good news and would provide both a market and a demand for recycled plastic.
In this newsletter…
- What are YOU doing for Plastic Free July?
- Why EMPTYING your containers before recycling them is important
- Our next Repair Cafe is part of the Downtown BIA’s Summer Market on Saturday, July 27.
- ARMS has a number of camps this summer for eco-friendly kids 🙂
- The next “Green Drinks” enviro-get-together is on Wednesday, July 24
- Finally, check out all the amazing events & activities happening in our community – so much going on!!
Subscribe to our monthly newsletters & get all our recycling updates, news, and tips emailed straight to your inbox! You can unsubscribe at any time.
In this newsletter…
- The Government of Canada announces upcoming single-use plastic bans…
- Our next Repair Cafe is part of the City of Maple Ridge’s inaugural Car Free Day event THIS Sunday, June 16.
- SUMMER DEPOT TOUR registration is now open!!
- The next “Green Drinks” enviro-get-together is on Wednesday, June 26
- Congrats to Port Coquitlam on the launch of their first Repair Cafe!
- Finally, check out all the amazing events & activities happening in our community – so much going on!!
Subscribe to our monthly newsletters & get all our recycling updates, news, and tips emailed straight to your inbox! You can unsubscribe at any time.
Recently we have heard from concerned residents about news stories they are hearing about recycling going through a crisis – here are a couple of examples:
“Is Canada’s recycling industry broken?” (Global News, April 29, 2019)
“Reduce, reuse, recycle, rejected: Why Canada’s recycling industry is in crisis mode” (The Globe & Mail, May 15, 2019).
People had heard that after China closed their doors to overly-contaminated materials, there was nowhere for it to go, and their well-sorted recyclables were going straight into the garbage.
While this may unfortunately be true for other municipalities in North America, it is NOT the case in British Columbia, and definitely not the case in Maple Ridge.
British Columbia is a leader in the recycling industry. Our stewardship programs, regulated and reviewed by the provincial government, are designed to be 100% funded by the manufacturers and retailers of the products themselves. Almost all items we accept at the Maple Ridge Recycling Depotare part of these programs, also known as Extended Producer Responsibilityprograms, or EPR.
Recycle BC is the not-for-profit organization responsible for residential packaging and paper product recycling throughout British Columbia. They address the China ban and what happens to collected recycling on their website.
There are two big reasons why we are largely unaffected by the shifts shutting down recycling programs in other parts of the continent:
1. BC has a local plastic processing plant – Merlin Plastics, located on Annacis Island
2. Recycle BC supports multi-stream recycling, which results in a cleaner product, that is more valuable to processors and easier to market. They also require their collectors to keep contamination levels below 3%.
Global News (finally) addressed how we are different (and mainly unaffected by recent changes) in a subsequent portions of their coverage – “Canada’s recycling industry is on life support – here’s how to fix it.” and “B.C. better positioned to handle Chinese recycling ban.” CBC News also produced a video addressing “Why B.C. is better at recycling than the rest of Canada.”
While this industrial shift is a major setback to many recycling programs around the world, what will hopefully emerge is a better understanding of how the recycling industry works, the development of local markets and local jobs in the green sector, and more people taking responsibility for the waste they produce.
On Saturday, February 9, Ridge Meadows Recycling Society is launching their second year of Repair Cafés at the Maple Ridge Library from 11am – 2pm with funding provided by Vancity’s enviroFund grant.
Repair Cafés are pop-up events where residents can bring their broken items (small appliances, jewelry, clothing, small toys or furniture, etc.) and there are tools, materials, and volunteer expert “fixers” available to help residents learn to repair their stuff!
“Last year’s Repair Cafés were a huge success,” says Leanne Koehn, Community Engagement for Ridge Meadows Recycling Society and Coordinator of the Repair Cafés, “We introduced the concept of Repair Cafés to our community, gathered a strong group of talented volunteer ‘fixers,’ and kept many, many items out of the landfill! We are now able to help people from other areas who want to start up their own Repair Cafés!”
In 2018, the group held 8 Repair Cafés in 6 different venues, partnering with the Maple Ridge Library, the Ridge Meadows Seniors’ Society, the Celebrate Earth Day festival, the Haney Farmers Market, and GETI Fest. The Cafés were initiated in large part with funding from the Government of Canada’s New Horizons for Seniors program, donations from Haney Builders, and media sponsorship from the Maple Ridge Pitt Meadows NEWS.
The goals of Maple Ridge Repair Cafes are to:
- Bring back repair into local society in a modern way
- Maintain repair expertise and share and pass on valuable knowledge and skills that have been learned over lifetimes, building individual and community capacity
- Promote social cohesion in the local community by connecting neighbours
- Repair and reuse items that would’ve ended up in the landfill
- Encourage people to value and appreciate their possessions
So far, the community has brought 400 items to be fixed by Maple Ridge Repair Café’s 50 volunteers, including 39 lamps, 20 clocks, 17 pairs of pants, 8 bracelets, 5 toasters, 3 stools, and a ceramic chicken!
Get Involved!
Know someone who has repair skills, wants to learn them, or just wants to help out? Send them to the online form at www.mrrepaircafe.ca or email mrrepaircafe@gmail.com to volunteer as a “Fixer” or a “Helper” and become a Repair Café hero!
To learn more, visit www.mrrepaircafe.ca or visit the Maple Ridge Repair Café Page on Facebook, email mrrepaircafe@gmail.com or phone Leanne at 604-463-5545.
