Now that the holiday season has come and gone, the Thompson Recycling Centre (TRC) is dealing with an excess of recyclable materials - some of which come in contaminated, and some that end up contaminated due to being exposed the elements.
These contaminated materials are non-recyclable and end up in the local landfill, operated by the Local Government District (LDG) of Mystery Lake. Erin Wilcox, who co-chairs the board of the TRC, says recyclable material becomes contaminated when it encounters moisture, when it is mixed with non-recyclable garbage or has not been cleaned properly.
She says that if this material is shipped south to the TRC's vendor with too much contamination, the vendor will reject it and end up taking it to another landfill and charge the cost to the TRC. Another problem the TRC has been facing is not being able to house all of the material that comes to it indoors. If, for instance, cardboard gets snowed on and the snow melts, resulting in the cardboard becoming moist, it is no longer fit for recycling.
"We're making every effort to be able to recycle and process everything, and in fact our employees have even tried to salvage good material that comes mixed in with contaminated material, but there's certainly a health and safety aspect around that as well," she explains.
Although the TRC is looking forward to the city's acquisition of a new $860,000 Labrie automated solid waste truck - recycling bins similar to the garbage bins the city rolled out in November - Wilcox says the new system for recycling, which will mirror the current waste management system for garbage, could pose some problems. The Labrie truck operates with a 10-foot arm that grabs garbage or recycle bins and dumps the contents into the truck.
"With the new waste system we've definitely seen an increase in material coming into the facility, and that's certainly been a challenge," she says. "The unofficial plan right now is that the new system will alleviate employees on the curbside, which is on of the biggest safety risks we're faced with, and it will make the system faster because they're not going to have to manually sort on the street, it'll go into a commingled system. But potentially, if people don't separate out the materials in our consultations with the city, that's been a major concern. A benefit of sorting on the street is if contaminated material is noticed right away, it's eliminated, but a truck is a blind dump." Wilcox says the TRC has been in talks with the city about some possible solutions to the problem.
Wayne Koversky, director of public works with the city of Thompson, says the truck won't be simply dumping material unchecked into its holding area. Just as with the new Labrie garbage truck, the new recycling truck will come equipped with two cameras - one that will view where the material goes and one that will view the back end of the truck, putting the onus on the operator of the truck to identify if a cart has contaminated material in it.
Koversky also says the city plans on undergoing an education campaign for residents about proper recycling habits, and could end up following up with enforcement of by-laws if the public is uncooperative.
City of Thompson Bylaw 1714-2006 states, under the storage of solid wastes heading, that "the owner of every commercial, residential and industrial building shall be responsible to ensure the provision and maintenance of the required containers to hold all garbage, rubbish and ashes." Under the recyclable wastes section, the bylaw states that containers for recyclable materials "must be separated from regular garbage collection by a minimum distance of 1 metre and shall be easily identifiable by city personnel." As well, it discusses the right of council to, "from time to time", make regulations about the type of containers used and the separation of specific recyclable wastes. The bylaw also states that, where a designated officer deems that a property owner or person has not complied with the bylaw, the officer will give notice to the owner, in writing, that the owner must comply with the bylaw within 24 hours. It is also written that, "from time to time", council may, by resolution, set fees and any conditions it deems appropriate to the city of Thompson fees and fine schedule. Any owner, agent, lessee or occupier who has been given a notice, order of direction by a designated officer or otherwise by the city to do "any act or thing to remedy any situation or condition existing on his property contrary to any part of this bylaw and subsequently neglects or refuses to comply with such order or direction with the time specified" can be ordered by the designated officer to pay for the cost of work done, and in default of payment, recover the cost as a debt due to the city, and/or charge the cost against the land concerned as taxes due and "owing in respect of that land recover the costs as such."
Deputy mayor Harold Smith, who also sits on the TRC board, says preparations are underway to ensure the TRC is ready for recycling numbers to go up and even double in the near future.
