The B.C. government is doubling down on its plastic plan by doubling the amount of money available to find new ways to recycle or reuse plastic.
Environment and Climate Change Strategy Minister George Heyman said Tuesday that another $10 million is being put into the CleanBC Plastics Action Fund.
That’s in addition to the almost $5 million allocated last year to fund nine projects. Those projects allowed the processing of another 20,000 tonnes of plastics annually.
The announcement was made at Plascon Plastics in Delta.
Funding last year of $600,000 from the plastics plan allowed Plascon to develop a child-resistant container for cannabis that’s made completely from recycled plastic, and to do it within a year, instead of the usual two or three years.
The company is now going to develop three new varieties of those containers for the cannabis industry.
“Without this support, it’s hard for us to scale this quickly and be able to develop these new products,” Plascon Plastics CEO Clark Chow said.
The company also has made flower pots from recycled tires and developed cosmetic containers made from ocean plastic.
Kevin Andrews, vice-president of operations with Merlin Plastics, said last year’s funding allowed the company to upgrade its equipment and thus increase the amount of recycled plastic used in new packaging. The funding has allowed the company to recycle another 12 million pounds of plastic a year.
He said Merlin, with its processing plant in Delta, is the largest plastics processor in Canada and noted 30 years ago when it started he watched the company grow from just recycling milk jugs, then moving to processing everything that’s put into a blue box, including the blue box. It now processes about a million pounds of recyclables a day and is still growing, thanks to items like the Clean BC Action Fund.
“As a government, we can’t fight climate change alone. We need support of local business …” added Ravi Kahlon, MLA for Delta North and Minister of Jobs, Economic Recovery and Innovation.
Projects will be selected for the second funding intake based on their ability to reduce the use of new plastic or increase the use of post-consumer recycled plastic, said a government release.
People can apply online, with successful projects being chosen in late September and continuing until February 2023. All projects must be complete by Feb. 15, 2024.
The government is also phasing in the recycling of new waste products, including electric-vehicle batteries, mattresses, compressed-gas canisters and medical sharps (e.g., hypodermic needles) through the Extended Producer Responsibility Five-Year Plan.
