Blue box recycling system

The blue box recycling system (BBRS) was initially a waste management system used by Canadian municipalities to collect source separated household waste materials for the purpose of recycling. The first full-scale community wide BBRS was implemented in 1983 by the waste management contractor Ontario Total Recycling Systems Ltd. (a subsidiary of Laidlaw Waste Systems) for the City of Kitchener, Ontario. The blue box recycling system was implemented as part of the city's waste management procedures. The blue box system and variations of it remain in place in hundreds of cities around the world.

Today, many municipalities operate blue box programs that accept all forms of paper materials, most plastic packaging, glass containers, aluminum cans and steel cans. For example, the City of Greater Napanee accepts:

The municipality provides the blue boxes to residents in areas serviced by the recycling program. This usually includes all single-family homes and townhouse units receiving garbage collection. Tenants of apartment buildings typically do not use blue boxes but rather deposit their household recyclable materials in larger containers made available.

An organization called Pollution Probe was formed in 1969 by students and faculty at the University of Toronto and in 1971, members published a report stressing the need for recycling. Also in 1971, the Canadian Federal Government first established a national Department of the Environment, known as Environment Canada, with Environmental protection as one of its priorities. The Ontario government followed suit with a Ministry of the Environment in 1972.

Jack McGinnis of Toronto helped form a community-based non-profit organization called "Is Five" Foundation in 1974. Named for a book of poetry by e.e. cummings, Is Five organized Canada’s first multi-material curbside pickup of recyclable material for 80,000 households of The Beaches neighbourhood of east Toronto. In 1977, Jack McGinnis and Derek Stephenson created a private consulting company, Resource Integration Systems (RIS) to advise governments in the field of recycling and waste management.

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