Recycling and Waste Centre Improves the Customer Experience with Flexible Design for Solid Waste, Recycling and Green Waste

United Boulevard Recycling and Waste Centre is a new facility in a unique location — atop the site of a former landfill. Sustainable reuse of the site transformed a brownfield into an asset for Metro Vancouver Regional District, furthering the district’s goals to reduce waste and move to a circular economy. 

In partnership with Morrison Hershfield, we completed architectural design of the recycling and waste centre, civil and site design including implementation of a revised landfill gas management system. The recycling and waste centre now serves roughly 850 customers daily, with a processing capacity of 600 tonnes per day. The recycling and waste centre’s design emphasizes diversion opportunities to minimize waste going to disposal. It enables commercial and municipal waste haulers, as well as local residents to dispose of waste, recycling and organics in one stop. A flexible design allows Metro Vancouver to customize the facility as demand shifts for various waste streams.  

The design of the new United Boulevard Recycling and Waste Centre improves aesthetics, sustainability and customer experience with unique features:

• Bottom ash from a nearby waste-to-energy facility was used as a foundation for the new transfer station. It’s a safe, innovative use of material that would otherwise go to waste. 
• Added customer convenience by offering disposal for solid waste, recycling and green waste at a single location.
• Site design enables easier navigation than the former transfer station, with customer safety and efficiency in mind.
• Site improvements include an aesthetic design, low maintenance landscaping and integration of a walking/biking path. 
• Trees planted offsite to offset site carbon emissions.