British Columbia's comprehensive plan to reduce carbon pollution and build a cleaner economy.
British Columbia, Canada
Understanding CleanBC’s Role in British Columbia
CleanBC is the province’s flagship climate and sustainability strategy, developed by the Ministry of Environment and Climate Change Strategy to guide British Columbia toward a low-carbon, circular economy. While not a regulatory body, CleanBC sets the overarching environmental goals that influence legislation, stewardship program design, and public engagement efforts across sectors-including beverage container recycling.
CleanBC provides the policy backdrop for British Columbia’s Container Deposit System (CDS), helping align the operations of groups like Encorp Pacific (Return-It) and the BC Brewers’ Recycled Container Collection Council with provincial objectives for waste reduction, recovery targets, and carbon emissions reductions.
Industry Stewardship and Compliance
CleanBC outlines the environmental outcomes that stewardship agencies are expected to support through their approved recycling programs. This includes increasing material recovery rates, encouraging reuse over disposal, and improving system-wide transparency and performance reporting.
While CleanBC doesn’t directly regulate CDS operations, it informs the goals and metrics tracked by stewardship groups. This leads to greater adoption of insights and analytics, consumer education programs, public-facing dashboards, and real-time monitoring systems that help align recycling activities with CleanBC’s benchmarks.
Governance and Environmental Impact
CleanBC is not a standalone agency-it is an integrated policy framework shaped and administered by the Ministry of Environment and Climate Change Strategy. Its goals influence a wide range of environmental initiatives, from building efficiency to transport electrification-and crucially, waste reduction through EPR programs.
In the context of CDS, CleanBC encourages innovation in areas like return site modernization, mobile collection services, digital refund systems, and public education campaigns. These initiatives support BC’s broader goals of reducing landfill use, promoting resource recovery, and advancing toward a zero-waste future.