A commentary by the chief operating officer of the Bottle Depot. Part of our continuing series on the impact of COVID-19 on local businesses.
During this unprecedented time for our community, The Bottle Depot was deemed an essential service for the provision of recycling collection.
Our team has been working diligently every day throughout this crisis, giving our customers the ability to collect their deposits for refundable beverage containers.
We have been the only business in our sector in the Capital Regional District providing these essential services by staying open for business throughout the entire crisis.
This is important for two reasons:
Our services provide a significant portion of income for many of our customers, and for many others is an important supplementary source of their income.
We also help to drive the recovery rate of these recyclable materials, so that they are not thrown away and harming the environment.
We are honoured to be able to continue supporting the community during this very challenging time while providing safe operations for our customers and staff with rigorous safety protocols and procedures in place.
I have also had the pleasure of speaking with many of our customers personally during this crisis, spanning the full spectrum of society. Time and time again, they have said thank you for staying open and that it means a tremendous amount to them.
It is incredibly meaningful for me to hear that and to see the genuine difference that we are making in people’s lives and to know the positive impact we are making in protecting the environment.
It is so important that the community return their refundable beverage containers rather than throwing them away in the blue box, or having them end up in the landfill, or, even worse, on our beautiful beaches, in our pristine ocean and lakes, or in our spectacular parks and forests.
An estimated one million refundable beverage containers go missing every day in British Columbia, which is shocking. As citizens, we need to change that behaviour.
Those containers have real value, with one litre and under at 10 cents per container, and over one litre at 20 cents per container, which can really add up for a typical household’s biweekly consumption.
So instead of throwing them away in the blue box or, even worse, polluting our environment, return them to our three Bottle Depot locations to receive the full deposit refund.
If folks do not wish to return their beverage containers to get their refunds, those valuable refunds can instead go toward great causes, such as the numerous charities we support via our 60-plus charity bin locations throughout the Capital Regional District or the numerous bottle drives we support for our community’s schools, sports teams and other very worthwhile causes.
By doing so, you are keeping the monies local to support our community, while also protecting the environment.
We raise thousands of dollars each month for worthwhile charities from our dedicated charity bins at our three depots supporting important causes such as the Victoria Foundation’s Rapid Relief Fund, Big Brother Big Sisters, Santas Anonymous, Cool Aid, Our Place, Cops 4 Cancer, Camp Barnard and the Surfrider Foundation, to name just a few.
These are all great causes that channel funds back into our community as opposed to having them leave the Island when inappropriately discarded into blue boxes.
Over the past 10 years, we have raised $5.8 million in funding for important community charitable causes and programs via our bottle drives/charitable accounts and charity bins. We are immensely proud of this result for our community, and to see the passion and excitement on the faces of the people working hard for their causes that receive this crucial funding is truly rewarding.
We would love to get behind other important causes, too. We welcome all good ideas and can help make a real difference for those organizations.
We wish to sincerely thank the CRD community for its business during this challenging time and to our amazing team for providing our essential service throughout.
We also want to extend our immense gratitude to all the front-line health-care workers, first responders and to the other essential service providers and their teams that have worked so tirelessly during this crisis.
Online: bottledepot.ca
