Executive Summary
Encorp Pacific (Canada) is the not-for-profit stewardship agency appointed to fulfill the requirements of the Recycling Regulation, Schedule 1, Beverage Container Product Category (BC Reg.449/2004). The Encorp Stewardship Plan covers all ready-to-drink beverage containers for soft drinks, juice, water, wine, coolers and spirits, plus nonrefillable beer bottles sold in British Columbia.
Encorp has 25 years of leading extended producer responsibility performance in Canada and diverting more than 20 billion beverage containers from the landfill. return-it.ca
2019 Recovery Rate
1.1 Program Performance Summary
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Public education materials and strategies
A multi-million dollar, year-round, province-wide, multi-pronged consumer awareness campaign with strategic action plans and activities resulted in a net consumer awareness level of 99%.
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Collection system and facilities
The Return-It™ network consists of independently owned and operated Return-It depot collection facilities that have collection agreements with Encorp, as well as corporate Return- It Express Plus™ locations and Express & GO™ unstaffed stations.Encorp’s collection network consist of 168 Return-It depots, 1 Return-It Express Plus location and 2 Express & GO stations.
9 depots sold in 2019.
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Product environmental impact reduction, reusability and recyclability
Encorp’s activities in 2019 contributed to the reduction of about 104.8 thousand tonnes of CO2 equivalent being released into the atmosphere, compared to 102.6 thousand tonnes in 2018.
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Pollution prevention hierarchy and product / component management
Containers collected by Encorp in 2019 were shipped to recyclers for further processing into new material in accordance with Section 8 of the Recycling Regulation.
See End Fate information in Section 5.2
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Product sold and collected and recovery rate
- Total Sales in units: 1,348,921,360
- Total Product Collected in units: 1,053,684,532
- Recovery Rate: 78.1% compared to 77.4% last year
- Provincial Per Capita Recovery: 207.8 units
- See regional breakdown in Section 6.3
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Summary of deposits, refunds, revenues and expenses
- Deposits collected: $90,315,218
- Refunds issued: $77,587,390
- Total revenue: $84,236,942
- Total expenses: $96,091,448
- See Financial Statements in Section 9.2
1.2 Comparison of Key Performance Targets
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Consumer access
98.6% BC Population Access Exceeded 1.6% 97% Target 98.6% of B.C.’s population has access to a beverage container return facility compared to the target in our Stewardship Plan of 97%. This target is based on drive times set out in the Stewardship Agencies of British Columbia (SABC) accessibility standard (Auditor’s report reference in Section 9.3, Collection Systems and Facilities). When we add the retail return points the access level increases to 99.5%. This is 2.5% above the target.
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Consumer awareness
99.0%Container Type Awareness Exceeded 4.0% 95.0% Target 
We set a goal to reach a 95% net awareness level for container types and beverage types which carry a deposit. Research results show that a 99% awareness level has been reached.
91.0% Brand Awareness 
The Return-It brand has reached a 91% awareness level with residents in British Columbia.
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Consumer convenience
The express system provides a superior level of consumer convenience by removing the need for customers to sort their containers and wait in line for the refund. Customers just tag their bags, drop them off and are on their way within minutes. In 2019 we added 37 more locations for a total of 68 Express sites in the province. In 2019 Encorp launched Express & GO, unstaffed drop-off stations where consumers are still able to benefit from the ease and convenience of Express. 2 Express & GO stations were opened in 2019, one in Tofino and at a second one in SFU Burnaby Campus.
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Carbon footprint
Benchmarking measurements and standardizing the tool Encorp uses has been the goal for several years. In 2019, we calculated results and compared them to the 2018 data. See table in Section 5.
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Recovery rate
78.1% Recovery Rate Exceeded 3.1% 75.0% Regulation The 2019 recovery rate is 78.1%, 3.1% above the regulated requirement of 75%.
