Funding Priorities & Focus
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CIF funding priorities in 2011 will focus on three strategic areas:
In addition to these priority areas (which are described in greater detail below), in 2011 the CIF will continue to accept applications from Ontario municipalities for funding support for general projects, such as:
- contract development
- best practices evaluation, e.g.identifying and/or proving standardized activities as better or best practices
- project development and management (to supplement in-house staff resources)
Municipalities are encouraged to contact CIF staff to discuss the potential of funding assistance for project ideas.
1. Best Practices
Read about how the CIF offers tools and funding assistance to help municipalities comply with best practices.
Adopting best practices (BP) as pathways to improved blue box recycling programs continues to be a CIF priority. In 2010, the Municipal-Industry Program Committee (MIPC) for blue box decided that industry steward payments to municipalities would be based, in part, on compliance with the eight fundamental best practices identified in KPMG's Blue Box Program Enhancement and Best Practices Assessment Project. Waste Diversion Ontario (WDO) collects information from municipalities about compliance with best practices through its annual datacall and allocates funding based on compliance calculations.
Industry stewards are companies that are legislated to pay fees on the type and amount of designated products and packaging they introduce into the Ontario marketplace and that are managed at end of life in the municipal waste system. These fees are distributed to municipalities annually to fund industry's share of the net blue box system costs.
2. Promotion and Education
Read about CIF's online tool to help small municipalities develop and implement P&E plans to comply with the best practice (BP) and WDO Datacall BP question.
Studies have demonstrated that investment in blue box promotion and education (P&E) pays dividends by increasing the capture rates of recyclable materials. However, some municipalities face challenges in finding sufficient funds to develop and implement P&E programs. CIF has developed some tools to make it easier to produce P&E materials for the multi-residential sector and for smaller municipalities first to produce a promotion and education plan and then to fund a planned campaign.
3. Innovation and Emerging Technologies
A number of critical areas of blue box recycling system effectiveness fall under the categories of innovation and emerging technologies such as MRF upgrades, plastics processing, automated collection and new technologies. CIF will fulfill this priority by focusing on the following key areas:
- Investigate and support ways to train MRF operators on preventative maintenance and equipment maintenance;
- Develop blue box transfer stations to reduce haulage costs and enable the transfer of material to regional MRF facilities;
- Support the implementation of Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) technologies on carts for inventory, maintenance and collection routing management;
- Investigate opportunities to introduce new fuel efficient collection vehicles using compressed natural gas, hybrid or other technologies;
- Support MRF equipment and facility upgrades with a focus on plastics handling and fibre clean-up;
- Work in conjunction with municipalities and Stewardship Ontario to develop a long term solution to managing plastics packaging.
Program funding is derived by setting aside a percentage of the fees that companies contribute to municipalities as their share of the cost of operating Ontario's blue box programs.
