With the promise of warmer weather just around the corner, Alec and I are, once again, on the road, meeting with municipal staff as part of the annual AMO/CIF Spring Outreach meetings. This year Will Mueller and Lori Andrews from WDO have joined us to help explain changes to the WDO Datacall process.
Over 100 municipal staff have signed up to take part in the meetings that are being hosted in five communities. These outreach activities help us stay in touch issues of greatest concern for municipalities and have become a vital part of how we shape AMO policy and the CIF program. In the sessions to date, we’ve heard concerns with multi-residential recycling, markets and more and we appreciate the positive feedback on the changes made to-date to the CIF and Datacall. The feedback participants provide helps to highlight the value of these sessions … and it’s important to know that your comments from previous sessions are heard and acted on.
This year’s CIF Request for Expressions of Interest (REOI) is also well underway, with the capable guidance of our newest staff member, Gary Everett. Gary is known to many CIF stakeholders for his outstanding work in waste management facilities and optimization, contracting and project support. Gary is already knee-deep in work with many municipalities, focusing on depot recycling projects and managing this year’s REOI. He brings a new dimension to our team and we know you will enjoy having the opportunity to work with him.
As you know, we try to more the CIF Ontario Recycler Workshops (ORW) around the province to address accessibility issues, so this spring’s ORW will to take place in the Niagara Region in the first week of June. We will also be hosting a second delivery of the very popular Contracts Management course on the following day. These will be two excellent days of information sharing, networking and program development and we hope you’ll be able to join us. There is more information below on each of these events and we encourage you to sign up now.
On a broader front, we expect this to be a year of change in the world of Blue Box recycling. Outside of Ontario, the first full producer responsibility PPP program will roll out in British Columbia in mid-May and we’re keeping an eye on Saskatchewan with the development of Multi-Material Stewardship Western. In Ontario we’re watching developments of Bill 91, the fall municipal elections and even more tangibly, the result of the arbitration process concerning Blue Box funding.
An important constant through this period is the work you all do, from providing what’s now considered to be the essential service of recycling to always upping the game and finding new ways to do what we do better. If you haven’t yet considered how the CIF might help you improve your program, find out about this year’s REOI and submit an inquiry by Friday May 9th and/or your response by or before the closing date of Friday, May 23rd.
On behalf of Alec, Carrie, Gary and the CIF support staff, we welcome your calls and emails at any time and look forward to continuing to work with you as we meet the next set of challenges in solid waste management.
Mike
Mike Birett, CIF Director
mbirett@wdo.ca or 905-936-5661