British Columbia – Provincial waste reduction rate 29.7%

The Recycling Council of British Columbia in Canada have prepared a tracking report on waste reduction across the Province. The findings of the provincial Municipal Waste Reduction Tracking Report show that the aggregate waste reduction rate for the province in 2000 was 29.7 per cent, down by over five per cent from the previous two years. However, the difference is due to a re-calculation of the 1990 per capita disposal rate rather than to an actual change in performance.



The annual waste reduction rate is based on an estimate of the per capita waste disposal rate in 1990, which was originally set at 0.944 kg/person. But an upward adjustment by BC STATS of its population estimate for 1990 has resulted in the downward adjustment of the per capita disposal rate, to 0.879 kg/person.



All subsequent annual waste diversion rates are affected. In a Ministry of Water, Land and Air Protection announcement this week, ministry representative Brian Grant said that the Ministry had not established a post-2000 waste reduction goal.



Between 1990 and 2000, the total waste disposed per year dropped from 2,890,516 tonnes to 2,509,112 tonnes, a reduction of 13%. During the same period of time the provincial population increased by 24%. Compared to 1999 when the disposal rate was 0.622 tonnes/capita, there was a 0.2% increase in the total amount of MSW landfilled and incinerated and a 0.9% increase in the population.



The provincial per capita recycling rate was 0.452 tonnes per capita in 2000, a 1.7% increase compared to 1999. As in previous years, this figure under-estimates the amount of recycling occurring, as it does not include all the materials recycled by private firms. Part of the increase in the recycling rate since 1998 is the result of including most of the material recycled by provincial and stewardship programmes in the 1999 and 2000 figures.



In 2000, 150,533 tonnes of material were recycled through regulated industry stewardship programs as well as provincially run initiatives. This material represents 8.1%, by weight of the total amount of recyclables reported in BC