The City of Sarnia is officially transitioning away from managing residential recycling as part of a provincial plan, but residents shouldn't notice a change.
As of July 1, recycling responsibilities will be handed over to an industry group called Circular Materials Ontario (CMO) as part of a program driven by the Ontario government.
City of Sarnia General Manager of Engineering and Operations David Jackson said the goal of the program is to make producers responsible for the packaging materials they create.
"If they have to bear the cost and the work to manage all that material in the end, it will incentivize them to, lets say make smaller or simpler packaging or make a packaging that's easier to recycle," he said. "So it's really a positive environmental change that should see an improvement and reduction in the amount of material that needs to be recycled."
CMO has committed to maintaining the same residential recycle collection program in Sarnia until December 31, 2025
"So they're using the same contractor Emterra so typical residents should see no difference in their collection. If there's concerns or questions about recycling, they would now call Emterra and [CMO] rather than the city," Jackson said.
Emterra can be reached at 1-888-597-1541. Sarnia residents will still have access to the Recycle Coach app to check collection schedules.
As announced by the provincial government in 2021, the new blue box program will be implemented in phases between 2023 and 2025.
"They're transitioning a third of the province each year so Sarnia is in the first round. Once they've transitioned all the municipalities, then they might look to make some changes," Jackson said. "For example, maybe they'll look to standardize the type of service in one region, they'll look to standardize how things are collected throughout the province so there may be changes coming in a few years."
The recycling management change was discussed during a city council meeting in June 2022. Since then, Jackson said the city has received a few calls questioning the change but the overall feedback has been positive.
As for a compost program, Jackson said the city is in the very early stages of strategy planning.
"So that's another initiative the provincial government is looking to mandate, that municipalities of a certain size in the province -- which would include Sarnia -- that we would have to implement an organics program," Jackson said. "So we're just starting the background research and review of that right now. So over the course of the next year, we'll be looking to start some kind of public and council discussions on what that might look like, and when something like that could be implemented."
Jackson said implementation is likely a couple of years away.
