Going out with the gold

The City of Hamilton is wrapping up its gold recycling box program as the province moves to end blue box processing. How the individual producer model will roll out still hasn’t been announced. 

On a scorching hot Monday in August, my wife came to pick me up from my poorly air-conditioned office and said, “There’s a present for you on the front step.”

Now, it was a long time past my birthday and Christmas was still far off, so I admit I was intrigued.

It turns out the present wasn’t from her, or another friend, but from the waste management division at the City of Hamilton. That’s right, I had joined our city’s recycling elite, and there was a brand new golden-coloured recycling box on my front step.

To be fair, it’s my oldest that does the majority of the sorting and putting out of recycling these days, so the credit largely goes to him, but I did teach him everything he knows. That, and it’s usually me rinsing out the empty tomato, bean and peanut butter (!) containers. We’re a good team.

The bin was accompanied by a cheerful note from a staff person complete with a happy face, that reminded us of the basics of recycling and what to put where.

I would be lying if I said I didn’t leave it on the front step for two days. “Weird flex” as the kids used to say, but here we are.

It turns out that over 25,000 gold boxes have been awarded in the city since the program began in 2010, but those bright yellow signals of recycling virtue could soon be a thing of the past.

Angela Storey is the director of waste management at the City of Hamilton and she told me the tale of the gold box program.

“The program launched in 2010, based on a book called ‘the purple cow.’ A purple cow is something that catches your eye and makes you think and wonder, ‘What is that?’”

The boxes are designed to be a eye-catching. For people to see them as a “gold medal of recycling.” The program soon caught on in popularity. Since then, the City has done visual inspections of people’s curbside waste one ward at a time to determine if they were following best practices for recycling. Those who pass the test were awarded a gold box and bragging rights.

The goal for the past few years was to award 100 per ward in the city, but that goal this year has been reduced to 50 per ward, making mine that much sweeter.

Why the reduction? The program is coming to an end.

“It’s coming to an end because municipal recycling is coming to an end,” Storey explains. “From July 2023 to December 2025 the province is transitioning blue box processing to an individual producer model.”

This is a model where the companies that produce the waste are responsible for recycling it. “The primary goal is to have producers use less packaging and to have the same recycling rules across the province,” says Storey. The difference in rules from city to city was always a source of confusion when people moved or visited elsewhere. Now the rules will be the same across the province.

What those new rules look like though, we won’t know until 2026. The transition to the individual producer model continues until December of next year, with Hamilton’s switch happening next April. After that, in January 2026 the group running the program is free to make any changes they need to.

“We know some things will change,” says Storey. “We take hardcover books now. They won’t be taking those. We take Ziploc baggies. They won’t be taking those either.” That said, we’ll have to wait to see what the new rules look like.

Until then? Nothing will change for people in Hamilton putting their waste to the curb.

Will there be a new version of the gold box program? That remains to be seen. Storey is convinced they will have some kind of incentive program, but what that will look like is anyone’s guess.

Until then, I’ll keep proudly displaying my box every Monday morning. And if you’re in wards 2, 3, 4, 7, 10 or 13 and haven’t been awarded one yet, don’t despair. The final audits of your wards are still coming, so maybe there will be one in your future, too.

Jason Allen is the host of The Environmental Urbanist, Tuesdays at 1 p.m. on 93.3 CFMU, and has been encouraging Hamiltonians to explore the outdoors for almost two decades.