Empty bottles and jars will be hanging around Greater Victoria homes a little longer than usual after the holidays, as glass recycling pickup will not be available in January.
According to the Capital Regional District, a delay in retrofitting new vehicles to handle glass will mean glass pickup will not be available in the curbside blue-box recycling program until after Feb. 1.
The lack of glass pickup is not related to a change of service provider for the recycling program.
Starting in January, GFL Environmental will operate the blue-box recycling-collection service for 132,000 single-family homes in the region.
The company takes on a six-year contract, succeeding Emterra Environmental.
Russ Smith, the CRD’s senior manager of environmental resource management, said the new contract offers increased collection capacity to handle future growth.
GFL intends to use 25 vehicles — two electric and 23 that run on compressed natural gas. Emterra employed 16 vehicles.
The CRD noted accepted materials will remain the same, but some scheduled collection days might change. Residents affected by route changes will be notified directly.
Residents in the region who receive curbside blue-box collection can go to crd.bc.ca/bluebox to see their curbside collection schedule.
