Many in Fredericton seem unaware glass containers now accepted at redemption centres

Aug 10, 2023

Outside the Northside Redemption Centre in Fredericton on a recent summer day, several people lined up carrying bags overflowing with cans and plastic bottles. Glass, however, was harder to spot.

For a long time, Fredericton residents have been grimacing every time they dump a glass jar in their regular garbage, knowing the recyclable material would end up in a landfill.

Yet for a while now, glass containers have been accepted at redemption centres under a pilot program that hasn't been aggressively promoted.

They now accept non-refundable glass jars, so long as they're clean and without lids.

Even so, Northside Redemption collects only about two large bins of glass a day, said manager Chris Matheson.

"The word is still getting out that we actually accept them now."

Fredericton resident James Norris stopped by the centre Friday with several boxes of glass jars. He said he found out that he could recycle glass from a friend at work, adding, "We've long been unhappy with the fact that you can't recycle glass in Fredericton."

The Department of Environment and Local Government said via email that the non-beverage glass container recycling program has been overseen by the Eastern Recyclers Association since 2021.

The 2023-2024 Environmental Trust Fund Award List shows that program was awarded $146,000 to continue increasing glass recycling around the province. To date, more than 100 tonnes of glass has been diverted from entering landfills, according to the provincial government.

Since its inception in 2021, 34 redemption centres across the province have participated in the glass container program, including those in Fredericton.

Frank LeBlanc, CEO of Recycle N.B., said that, as of Nov. 1, more people will hopefully be made aware that glass containers are now accepted for recycling.

Recycle N.B.'s upcoming extended producer responsibility program will entail education and promotion — including information on how and where to recycle glass.

Currently, Fredericton residents, through their taxes, pay for the curbside collection of their blue and grey boxes. LeBlanc said that once the producer-pay program launches, brand owners will be the ones paying rather than the taxpayer.

"The people that are putting the materials into the marketplace in the first place are going to be the ones that are going to be responsible for collecting it and recycling it at the end of the day," he said.

Unfortunately, glass won't be available for curbside collection — residents will still have to drop it off at redemption centres.

"If you pick it up on the curbside and it goes into one of those crusher trucks, once all of those things get crushed together, the glass will break and it'll contaminate the entire load," said LeBlanc.

Chris Betts, a Fredericton resident, said he can get $200 in one day from the number of plastic bottles and cans he collects. But for non-beverage glass containers, there's no deposit.

"It's so heavy," said Betts. "It's not worth it for me."

There is one incentive, however, which is that it's better for the environment to recycle it. And for many Frederictonians, that's enough.

"It costs a lot of money in terms of transport and energy and fuel to move new glass containers around the world, and then we throw it in the landfill," said Norris. "It doesn't make a lot of sense to me."

But there are critics of glass recycling. Greg Ericson, deputy mayor of Fredericton and member of the city's environmental stewardship committee, said it may not be environmentally efficient to recycle glass in New Brunswick.

Glass, he says, "represents a miniscule amount of the substance going into the solid waste stream, less than one per cent, I believe."

Ericson said glass is not only being produced less frequently, but that it's also inert — meaning that it "doesn't degrade and leach toxic chemicals" into the environment.

"If we spend more energy, money or time to recycle it than we would get out of the recycled end-products, then obviously it's not going to be an environmentally beneficial activity," he said.

Regardless, things are changing in the recycling industry, he said, as more "cradle to grave" initiatives, like Recycle N.B., begin to take shape.

Journalist

Based in Toronto, Rachel DeGasperis is a 2023 CBC News Joan Donaldson Scholar. She holds a master of journalism degree from Toronto Metropolitan University and a bachelor of arts in political science from the University of Toronto. You can reach her at [email protected]