Encorp Pacific and BC Parks are working together to keep beverage containers out of landfills, out of parks, and away from bears. Since 2008, 121 bear-proof recycle bins have been placed in eight of B.C.’s most popular provincial parks at a cost of more than $180,000.
The partnership began with a pilot project three years ago. Encorp sponsored 61 bear-resistant bins called Hid-A-Bags (pronounced hide-a-bags) to collect recycling in four provincial parks. The pilot has since morphed into a multi-year sponsorship, announced last June by Environment Minister Terry Lake and Encorp CEO Neil Hastie.
Almost 20 million people visit B.C.’s nearly 1,000 provincial parks and protected areas each year. With more than 250 campgrounds and over 300 day-use areas across British Columbia, the amount of recyclable beverage containers left behind is substantial.
It is known from experience in Bear Smart communities that proper attractant management of garbage and recyclables significantly reduces human-bear conflict. As the old saying in B.C. goes, a “fed bear is a dead bear.” These specially designed metal bins allow park users to recycle their used beverage containers and safely keep bears out.
As many provincial parks are far from “Return It” depots, containers are usually stockpiled in service yards until the park operator can make a trip into town. Depending on how the recyclables are stored, this can be another concern for wildlife habituation. Even if wildlife issues are manageable, sometimes the recycling process is not economical for the park operator.
Over the past 10 years, BC Parks has been working toward replacing all garbage and recycling containers in provincial parks with bear-resistant Hid-A-Bag bins. These bins are widely used for commercial garbage and recycling collection across North America. However, each bin (for garbage or recycling) costs approximately $1,200 plus shipping and installation so they have been, and continue to be, installed in stages.
BC Parks’ priority for installing bins has been for garbage collection because it leads to more wildlife problems than recycling. However, BC Parks is committed to offering a recycling option to park visitors and now that most parks have Hid-A-Bag garbage bins, the primary focus has moved to recycling.
Encorp Pacific is a federally incorporated, not-for-profit, product stewardship corporation with beverage container management as its core business. Its mandate is to recover used packaging and end-of-life products from consumers and to ensure they are properly recycled and not land-filled or incinerated.
One of Encorp’s strategies is to partner with agencies to increase the recovery rate of beverage containers in public spaces, so a partnership involving sponsorship of bear-resistant recycling bins made perfect sense.
As part of the partnership, Encorp provides the bins and pays for their delivery to the park’s service yard. BC Parks, in conjunction with the park facility operator, installs the bins and reports the number of containers recycled to Encorp on a monthly or bi-monthly basis. Moving forward, Encorp and BC Parks will jointly select a handful of parks to receive these recycling bins each year.
Not only does Encorp divert a billion recyclable beverage containers from landfills every year, the stewardship corporation also allowed BC Parks to divert valuable maintenance funding to other aspects of park management. It’s a win-win partnership where Encorp receives increased public visibility and reports on the number of containers recycled and BC Parks visitors have an opportunity to recycle their cans and bottles without impacting the park’s wildlife.
Encorp Pacific’s partnership with BC Parks was recently recognized at the 2011 Zero Waste Conference in Whistler. Encorp was presented with a framed photo of Alice Lake Provincial Park where 11 of its recycling bins have been installed along with a new park bench with a plaque of Encorp’s logo honouring its contribution to BC Parks.
Sydney Martin is manager of sponsorship and partnership with BC Parks, Ministry of Environment.
