Encorp Atlantic has released its 2024 Annual Report, marking a pivotal year in the evolution of beverage container recycling in New Brunswick. The province’s Beverage Containers Program officially transitioned to an Extended Producer Responsibility (EPR) model on April 1, 2024—placing Encorp as the newly formed non-profit Producer Responsibility Organization (PRO) fully in charge of managing the Program.
This milestone year saw the introduction of full refunds for consumers on all deposit-bearing beverage containers, along with the implementation of container recycling fees (CRFs) for brand owners. These changes, combined with our consumer awareness efforts, helped increase the program’s beverage container recovery rate to 76.6% for 2024—surpassing the 73% target set in our Stewardship Plan.
Key achievements included finalizing the integration of operations under a single agent/PRO, signing a historic seven-year agreement with redemption centres (RCs), and completing the rollout of Encorp’s proprietary point-of-sale (POS) system across the network of RCs. The new agreement also introduced increased service fees, annual presence fees for low-volume RCs, and minimum operating hours for increased consumer access.
Consumer education remained a core focus. Encorp expanded its popular Recycling Heroes in School program and launched wide-reaching public campaigns—including “Recycling Matters. Full Refunds Add Up”—to boost awareness of the full deposit refund and the importance of returning empty beverage containers for recycling.
For a closer look at the eventful year that was 2024 – our first year of EPR, read our recently published 2024 Annual Report.
