Okotoks Town Council will be writing to the Minister of Environment and Parks to pressure upgrades to provincial recycling regulations.

The Alberta Urban Municipalities Association has put forward a call to municipalities to participate in a letter writing campaign regarding updating provincial recycling regulations, which was presented to council on Monday Aug. 21.

Dawn Smith, Sustainability Coordinator for the Town Of Okotoks, says historically there has been little movement on provincial regulations, some of which haven't been updated in over a decade.

"A lot of the costs are being downloaded to the municipality, and to the end user," she says. "Obviously all the municipalities have implemented recycling programs, so waste diversion programs like organics and recycling, that's all at the cost of the citizen. What the programs at the Provincial level, which actually directed by the Federal Government to do is start looking at producer responsibility, such as packaging, and all these other materials given to the consumer. Whether that's done through a provincial program, or even a fee structure like you would for your beverage recycling; paying a small environmental fee to cover the cost of actually dealing with the material at the end of its use."

Smith shares numerous workshops and consultations have been conducted by the Alberta Government with municipalities, however no action has been taken.

For example, a program Alberta municipalities had worked on for years never made it to the legislature.

"We want to know where we're at, the municipalities have done so much consultation over the last decade, but there's been little actual policy plan that has come out of it. All the regions in Alberta worked so hard on the Construction and Demolition Waste Program only to see it never reach reading at the Legislative Assembly for two years, and then of course after that time it died, so all of that work was lost."

The Town and AUMA would like to see; Regulatory amendments to consolidate Alberta's existing recycling regulations under one regulation called the Designated Materials Recycling Regulation, the removal of specified maximum environmental fees from regulation while still ensuring consumer protection from excessive fees, the expansion of the electronic program, and expanding the used oil materials recycling program.

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