A bottle recycling depot in Blackfalds would be an indisputably good thing. The regulations preventing it are ridiculous.
Blackfalds businessman Brice Johnson wants to set up shop there, but the agency controlling recyclable beverage containers won’t let him, because it’s deemed too close to one in Bentley.
Jason London, compliance manager with the Alberta Beverage Container Management Board, told the Advocate this week that rural beverage depots have to be at least 24 km apart, but Blackfalds is only 19 km away from Bentley — as the crow flies.
“We don’t want depots to open and then close,” London told the Advocate. “We would rather maintain them as viable businesses and keep them available for people all the time.”
The rules are designed partly to protect existing jobs.
In this case, however, a new bottle depot in Blackfalds would be no threat to the existing one in Bentley, because no Blackfalds consumers in their right minds would consider it a reasonable destination.
Blackfalds and Bentley may be only 19 km apart as the crow flies, but crows could only carry one bottle at a time. And where would they keep the coins?
The 24-km line-of-flight spacing requirement for rural depots was established for bureaucratic convenience rather than common sense.
By my odometer count this week, it’s 32 km from the heart of Blackfalds to the Bentley bottle depot.
It’s more than a 60-km round trip, costing $5 for gasoline alone at today’s prices in a fuel-efficient compact car.
In order to make that trip, a Blackfalds consumer would have to waste time and spend money needlessly, passing up other depots that are much closer.
The Cosmos bottle depot in north Red Deer is 10 km from the heart of Blackfalds. The depot in Lacombe is less than half a kilometre farther away.
Those are the bottle-return shops that Blackfalds-area residents are using now and they are the ones that would be affected if the beverage container management board let Johnson set up shop in Blackfalds.
Those two depots are considered urban; they operate under different rules than the rural one in Bentley, with much closer spacing limits.
Neither they nor Red Deer’s South Hill bottle depot — which is 40 per cent closer to Blackfalds than Bentley is — would be significantly affected by a new competitor in Blackfalds.
All three communities have grown massively in recent years, especially Blackfalds. The local market is big enough for another player.
If any people from the Blackfalds area are using the Bentley bottle depot, it’s because they have other reasons to be in Bentley and they are multi-tasking.
Bottle depots in Alberta are not destination shops for consumers. They are commodities.
They are not permitted to compete with each other on pricing or products accepted. Convenience is the dominant consumer concern in selecting a bottle depot.
The Alberta Beverage Container Management Board, established under the authority of the Alberta Environment minister, dictates precisely which drink containers are acceptable and what prices will be paid: 10 cents for containers of one litre or less and 25 cents for containers larger than a litre.
The main goals in creating the container management board were to conserve energy and protect the environment.
By its own yardsticks, it seems to be succeeding. A board brochure, available at every bottle depot in the province, notes that refillable glass containers like beer bottles are returned to bottlers 14 times on average before they are too chipped or damaged to be used again.
Then they are crushed and recycled. Last year, 42,000 tonnes of glass was recycled in this way.
Last year, 12,000 tonnes of aluminum was kept out of landfill sites and recycled into new beverage cans, the board reports.
Clearly, container recycling is a good thing. Equally clearly, Albertans see the personal and environmental value in returning their beverage containers.
Allowing a recycling depot in Blackfalds would be good for town residents and good for the environment as well, by diminishing the amount of fuel wasted and the wear and tear on roads from the extra travel now required.
Under Johnson’s plan, he would also accept paper, plastic, batteries and other recyclable materials, but his business strategy hinges on accepting beverage containers, since that’s where the profits are.
To be sure, some jobs might be threatened if common sense prevailed in where bottle depots can be located.
None of those jobs would be associated with the Bentley depot though.
Some of them might be with Beverage Container Management Board, where employees are now tasked with creating and enforcing insidious rules.
Joe McLaughlin retired from the Advocate last year after 25 years as managing editor.