Joint Submission to Metro Vancouver: Smart Waste Program and Draft Tipping Fee Bylaw Updates

The Business Council of British Columbia, the Greater Vancouver Board of Trade, the B.C. Chamber of Commerce, the Canadian Federation of Independent Business, and the Independent Contractors and Businesses Association together represent tens of thousands of businesses in the region. We appreciate the opportunity to provide input on Metro Vancouver’s (MV) bylaw process.

In July 2023, MV’s Zero Waste Committee introduced the revised Tipping Fee Bylaw and the Smart Waste Program (SWP). Respectively, these initiatives compel waste haulers to provide information related to their business activities in collecting and disposing of waste (Tipping Fee Bylaw) and authorize MV to use GPS devices in waste bins to track them (SWP). As noted in MV’s Engagement Summary, industry stakeholders provided feedback on many issues. Most of the concerns remain outstanding in new drafts of the Bylaw released after the Engagement Summary. We are concerned that the important competitive, privacy, and cost issues raised by industry during this process have not been fully heard and have not been addressed.