Loraas receives recycling contract with Canadian city

The city of Saskatoon, Saskatchewan, has finalized an eight-year agreement with Loraas https://www.loraas.ca/facilities/recycle-facility/, Saskatoon, to provide the city, the largest in the province, with curbside recycling services, sorting collected material at its single-stream material recovery facility (MRF) in Saskatoon. The program will begin Jan. 1, 2020, and run through 2027.

“We are happy to continue our partnership with Loraas Recycle to deliver a successful recycling program and to offer the levels of service the city and its residents have come to expect,” says Russ Munro, Saskatoon director of Water & Waste Operations.

The city also will maintain its contract with Cosmopolitan Industries, a Saskatoon organization that provides services to adults with intellectual disabilities through 2023.

In awarding Loraas the contract, the city said that because of increased pressures and shifts in the global recycling market, several changes would be introduced when the new program goes into effect, including the removal of black plastics (e.g. takeout containers, disposable coffee cup lids) and polycoat material, such as coffee cups, from the collection program. The rate for the curbside residential recycling program also will increase to $7.38 per household per month in 2020 and to $7.47 in 2021, pending city council approval. The multiunit residential recycling rate will increase to $3.71 per household per month in 2020 and to $3.86 in 2021, pending city council approval.

"An ideal scenario would have us accepting all recyclable material and maintaining the rates for our residents, but unfortunately the market is dictating otherwise,” says Munro. “That said, the changes we are implementing to our residential recycling programs will help stabilize us during this time of market uncertainty and put us in a better financial position than other prairie cities with similar recycling programs."

He adds, “We remain diligent in working with our recycling partners to run an efficient and cost-effective recycling program for the city and its residents.”

The administration will present a report, "Additional Information for Curbside Residential Recycling for 2020 and Beyond, to the Standing Policy Committee of Environment, Utilities and Corporate Services," Dec. 2.