Green Communities and Resources from Waste in British Columbia
Green Communities
The Ministry of Community & Rural Development (MCD) is responsible for the Green 
Communities initiative. “Under the initiative, Green Communities are envisioned as vibrant, connective, environmentally sustainable and socially responsive. Integrated Resource Recovery – or IRR – forms an integral part of this initiative,” states the Ministry’s Jodi Dong.
Resources from Waste: Integrated Resource Recovery
“Integrated Resource Recovery is an approach and a set of tools for planning and managing community infrastructure to maximize the recovery of value from waste resources.”
“In April of 2009, the Ministry released a report entitled Resources from Waste: A Guide to Integrated Resource Recovery in order to assist local governments to plan and implement a wide range of IRR projects. The Guide expands on a preliminary study released one year previously.”
To read the previous announcement on Water Bucket, click on Province releases IRR Guide.
Potential Benefits
Integrated Resource Recovery can potentially:
- Reduce greenhouse gas emissions;
- Reduce pollution and divert waste from municipal, industrial, and resource sectors to beneficial uses;
- Reduce demand for new resources and infrastructure by providing local sources of clean energy, nutrients, and water;
- Delay or offset the purchase or expansion of infrastructure; and
- Generate new economic opportunities and new sources of revenue.
“Though Integrated Resource Recovery focuses on reuse, recycling, and recovery of resources, the purpose of doing so is to avoid consuming new resources, and ultimately to dispose of even less. This is illustrated in the Pollution Prevention Hierarchy,” concludes Jody Dong.
IRR complements a number of Provincial strategies, including the Climate Action Plan, the Energy Plan, the Bioenergy Strategy, the Air Action Plan, the Energy Efficient Building Strategy, Living Water Smart, and the Agricultural Plan.
Existing IRR Projects in British Columbia
There are already a number of IRR projects in B.C., and many more are planned. MCD maintains an inventory of resource recovery projects in British Columbia. The inventory is a living document, and will be updated with new examples as they become available. To download a copy, click on Integrated Resource Recovery Inventory.
Funding
There are numerous funding opportunities potentially available for IRR projects from regional, Provincial, and Federal sources.
Posted July 2009