Mayor Katz offering two cents a pop to encourage glass, bottle recycling

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This article was published 15/10/2010 (5505 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

EMPTY glass and plastic bottles and aluminum cans could be redeemed for two cents a pop at public recycling bins Mayor Sam Katz promises to open if he’s re-elected on Oct. 27.

On Thursday, Katz pledged to create a one-year, $85,000 pilot project that would see five recycling depots open in Winnipeg as part of an effort to improve the city’s recycling rate.

“In the province of Manitoba, we’re at the dismal rate of 40 per cent,” Katz told reporters at Versatech Industries Inc., an Inkster Industrial Park non-profit organization that would operate the depots. “When it comes to recycling these products, we need to do more to improve that and I think this could have a very positive impact.”

Katz said he would like to see recycling rates rise to 70 or 80 per cent. But he declined to predict how much the proposed pilot project would improve recycling rates.

The pilot project would augment the city’s blue-box collection program, Katz said. The depots will provide financial incentives for people to pick up recyclables off the street and would allow youths or religious organizations to earn a little revenue while cleaning streets, he added.

“I can tell you growing up, any time we saw a bottle on the street, we picked it up,” the mayor said. “When I was growing up, my greatest sources of revenue (were) collecting bottles, shovelling snow and cutting grass and delivering newspapers.”

Katz said he was not concerned the depots would encourage “binners” to start rooting through people’s trash or recycling bins.

The pilot project would also allow Versatech, which currently employs about 240 people with intellectual disabilities, to hire 10 more people, Katz said.

Versatech processes about 9,000 tonnes of recyclables a year, said president and CEO Richard Doyle. Camping-products manufacturer Coghlan’s and aerospace companies Boeing and Bristol Aerospace are among Versatech’s largest clients, he added.

Residential recyclables, however, represent only a small portion of Winnipeg’s waste stream, said Peter Miller, an environmental policy advocate who works for the non-profit Green Action Centre, formerly known as Resource Conservation Manitoba. He said Katz’s proposal does not address industrial waste or organics.

bartley.kives@freepress.mb.ca