The Regional District of Central Kootenay is calling on the province to make the newspaper industryjoin a provincial recycling stewardship program. However, an industry executive says if they are forced to pay proposed fees, a number of papers would have to shut down to meet the costs.
“We simply can not afford the millions of dollars this would cost the newspaper industry,” John Hinds, the CEO ofNewspapers Canada, an industry group, told the Star. “It would put a significant number of newspapers at risk if wewere forced to pay the Multi-Material BC (MMBC) fees as they stand. Look at what happened in Nanaimo andKamloops [where newspapers recently closed]. Look at what is happening around the country.”
The RDCK board passed a motion in February to urge BC’s environment minister to pressure the industry to complywith regulations that require producers of paper and packaging to pay for the recycling of their products.
MMBC is the non-profit stewardship organization tasked with getting BC industries, rather than taxpayers, to pay forrecycling the paper and packaging it produces. MMBC collects, processes, and sells recycled material, and about 1,300producers of paper and packaging in BC pay them to do this. (MMBC collects Nelson’s recycling, but it’s not noticeablebecause the organization contracts the work to the city.)