Recycling Plan Targets Construction Waste

In a bid to reduce the tons of debris home builders and construction crews send annually to the landfill, the Alberta government and industry groups will announce they are developing a program that makes companies pay if they don't recycle construction or demolition materials.

Officials familiar with the plan said some crucial details aren't figured out yet, including the costs and how the system will be enforced. But those in the recycling sector said it's good that construction groups are agreeing to get serious about diverting waste from the dumps.

"They want to get involved in this, as opposed to being told what to do," said Dan Zembal, past president of the Recycling Council of Alberta.

Rather than copying Ontario's system of penalties, or British Columbia's bans on sending certain materials to landfills, Alberta will adopt a deposit and refund system, which has been long discussed by Alberta Environment, recycling groups and industry players.

When firms apply for development permits for homes or non-residential buildings, they will be required to also provide a waste management plan and a deposit that will likely be based on a project's square footage. The amount of deposit that gets refunded will be based on how much of the drywall, wood and other materials isn't sent to landfills.

Currently, less than 10 per cent of construction or demolition waste is diverted from dumps in Alberta, although green advocates say industry can recycle or reuse far more. Canmore currently keeps 60 per cent of the waste out of landfills. While many cities are ready to handle far more materials through recycling, smaller communities might not be ready yet.

"In the rural areas, there's issues with not having enough infrastructure or opportunities to recycle, so we don't want to create a program that pressures people to illegally dump their material because they have nowhere else to take it," said Leanne Michie of EnerVision, an agency that encourages green home-building and helps companies find places to divert or recycle materials.

Alberta's landfills swelled by 1,100 kilograms of waste per person in 2006, more than any other province, Statistics Canada reported in June.

Led by business and industrial waste sources, the province's waste had risen by 24.1 per cent over 2004 -- five times Alberta's population growth, the report estimated. Meanwhile, Alberta ranks fifth nationally in the amount of waste diverted per capita from the landfill.

The possible start date for the new waste-management project is said to be 2010. The government is announcing the strategy a day after it said it would hike deposit fees for drink containers, in another bid to boost recycling and ease pressures on Alberta's fast-growing dumps.

A spokeswoman for Alberta Environment would not confirm the province's plans. Calgary Herald