About Bluewater Recycling Association

The Bluewater Recycling Association was founded in 1989 to provide waste diversion services to rural municipalities in southwestern Ontario.  The Association is a rural based non-profit organization developing and maintaining facilities on behalf of, and in cooperation with the municipal sector.  The 74 people employed by the Association handle more than 44,000 tonnes of material yearly from approximately 180,000 people in 87,000 households from 20 municipalities with its state of the art material recovery facility and fleet of 44 collection vehicles.

The unique structure of the Association enables it to operate at arms length from its municipal owners providing a management environment similar to a private company focused on efficiency.  Under the watchful eyes of the Board of Directors, made up of independent elected politicians, service remains an equally important component of our decision making process.  We like to think that we operate in a gray area that benefits from the best of both worlds, private and public.

The Association has always been a leader in innovation.  From its early implementation of plastic recycling in 1989 to its 800 pages of school curriculum, with the introduction of user pay in 1992, some of its members achieved an 80% waste reduction by 1994.  This led to the development of its co-collection program in 1996 resulting in unmatched savings

All of the Association's municipal depots were converted to the front end type of containers in 1999 to allow the recovery of materials such as cardboard from depots.  The program's success was so great that the recovery doubled in a short time. 

The Association continues to keep abreast of external developments in its industry. Many technologies are now available to better handle what we dispose of in an environmentally friendlier way while lowering costs.

The Association upgraded its Material Recovery Facility in the last quarter of 2009.  The new Material Recovery Facility processes single stream materials.  The new facility processes single stream materials using equipment such five screens, five air classifiers, two optical sorters, two overhead magnets, and two eddy current to separate the materials with the assistance of personnel in a quality control role only.  While the changes have improved the efficiency of the systems they also enhanced the quality of the jobs and the safety of our employees.

The new single stream facility enabled us to convert our current customers to a fully automated collection system.

The results of our efforts will be the most effective waste management system in Ontario. Our system will divert waste like no other because it will continue to be built on the foundation that waste is simply an unexploited resource.