Where does recycling go in British Columbia?

Organizations who lead B.C.’s provincial EPR recycling programs are required to publish an annual report each year in relation to their approved EPR plan.

The annual report includes information about the recycling program’s performance including reporting on recovery rates, summary of deposits and refunds, collection systems and facilities, and end of life management.

Annual reports are posted after July, by the B.C. government, and can be found here.

We’ve shared a few of the programs you might know below.

Recycle BC’s Blue Box Program

Recycle BC has local BC end markets for plastic and glass. Metal and a significant amount of paper also stays in Canada and North America. Here’s a snippet from their 2023 Annual report here. Information on end-markets can be found on page 24.

Check out Recycle BC’s video on end markets, you can learn more about their recycling system on their website.

Encorp Pacific Canada - Return Its

Encorp’s recycling program includes ready-to-drink beverage containers sold in B.C., including aluminum cans, plastic, glass, bi-metal, drink boxes, gable top cartons, bag-in-a-box, stand-up pouches as well as refillable bottles.

In 2023, Encorp prevented 1.375 billion containers from ending up in landfills, representing a 79.6% overall recovery rate.

In British Columbia a deposit is paid on every beverage container sold in the province. In 2023, Encorp issued $137,516,157 in deposit refunds. Unclaimed deposits are used to help fund the system. When the revenue from unclaimed deposits and from the sales of collected material are insufficient to cover the cost of recovering and recycling a specific container type, a non-refundable container recycling fee is added at the time of sale to make up for the shortfall. Third-party auditors audit both the financial and non-financial statements of Encorp to verify the accuracy of the reported results (on page 70 in the Annual Report) .

Learn how the following items were recycled in 2023:

  • Aluminum cans collected were sold and shipped to re-melt facilities in the USA and turned back into sheet stock for new cans.

  • Plastic containers were sold and shipped to a recycler in Canada to their facilities in British Columbia and Alberta. The commodity is cleaned and pelletized to become FDA-approved new raw material for manufacturers of various plastic products including new containers, strapping material and fibres.

  • Glass containers were processed in British Columbia and shipped to a facility that produces new glass bottles in Seattle, Washington; a manufacturing plant that produces fibreglass insulation in Alberta; and a facility that manufactures sandblasting materials in Quesnel, BC

  • Polycoat containers collected were sold to brokers in Canada and the USA. One broker sold approximately 5% of polycoat containers to a manufacturer in Des Moines, Iowa, where they produce building boards that are used as an alternative to traditional wallboards, roofing, floor underlayment, ceiling tiles and structured insulated panel.

    The remaining 95% polycoat containers were sold to a facility who shipped the material to recyclers in India, Malaysia and Korea where the fibre from the polycoat was recycled and used to make the white top layer of boxboard and toilet tissue. The plastic film and aluminum were used to make plastic lumber.

Read more about Encorp’s 2023 performance and activities in their Annual Report here. On page 42, you can learn more about the end fate of materials.