New Democrat MLA Lana Popham says a 鈥渄ummy company鈥� from Toronto is poised to start a near-monopoly on recycling in B.C.
A new recycling system under an organization called Multi-Materials B.C. is poised to begin operating in May, and Premier Christy Clark acknowledged recently that it has been a 鈥渂umpy road.鈥�
Popham told the legislature Monday it鈥檚 more than bumpy, it鈥檚 鈥渋mpassable.鈥�
鈥淭hey are setting up a system that鈥檚 dangerously close to a monopoly. This will inevitably lead to a decrease in quality of services and increase in price.鈥�
MMBC has signed contracts with municipalities that feature inadequate funding, business-killing penalties and a gag clause on reporting data, she said.
The Saanich South MLA said the new agency also represents a hidden tax, in the form of a uniform new cost to big business, which will be passed on to consumers, she said.
The newspaper industry estimates that MMBC will cost the industry $10 million a year, and Popham said its refusal to participate throws the viability of the project into question.
She said the control of recycling should never have been outsourced to a large corporate outfit from Ontario, and represents a 鈥減rofound failure.鈥�
Peter Kvarnstrom, chairman of the 91原创 Newspaper Association, has said there is no greater threat to the fragile industry than the new recycling policy.
It will cause a wave of damage and job losses across newsrooms everywhere, and affect many other businesses, he said.
B.C. Liberal MLA Eric Foster, responding to Popham, said MMBC will reduce the amount of waste. The system 鈥渃ame forward as an opportunity to change people鈥檚 way of doing business and to put the onus on the original producers of the waste product or the recyclable product to reduce.鈥�
