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Thompson residents congratulated for recycling efforts

The Manitoba Product Stewardship Corporation (MPSC)'s 2009 community recycling report says that overall, residents in Thompson recycled 61.7 kilograms per person last year, resulting in a "A" on the MPSC's grading system.

The Manitoba Product Stewardship Corporation (MPSC)'s 2009 community recycling report says that overall, residents in Thompson recycled 61.7 kilograms per person last year, resulting in a "A" on the MPSC's grading system.

Based on recycling reports received by the MPSC from Thompson between April 1 2008 and March 31 2009, Thompson's "A" is one grade away from being the best it can achieve - an "A+".

During this time period, Thompsonites recycled 152,264.5 kilograms of newsprint and flyers; 1,567.5 kilograms of magazines; 60,471.5 kilograms of boxboards; 6,535 kilograms gable top cartons; 16,396 kilograms of steel food and beverage containers; 14,510.5 kilograms of aluminum beverage containers; 10,760 kilograms of PET #1 plastic bottles; 8,591.5 kilograms of HDPE #2 plastic containers; 39,264.2 kilograms of #4, 5 & 7 household plastic containers; 118,000 kilograms of glass containers and 400,810.5 kilograms of corrugated cardboard, for a total of 829,171.2 recycled kilograms.

The MPSC says community recycling programs all over Manitoba did very well this past year, with over 70,000 metric tonnes of packaging and printed material being recycled.

City Coun. Harold Smith says that the high grade the City of Thompson got shows that community members are serious about recycling, but he says the number could be even higher if the proper systems were in place for recycling.

"The arrangement between the City of Thompson and the Thompson Recycling Centre is simply not adequate for handling this kind of volume. It was alright in the early days when the big one was 16 tonnes of material in a month. We're now averaging 68 tonnes per month," he says. "We want to thank residents in the community for sticking with it, even though we had a couple of disruptions in the service in the last year. We are still in the transition phase and we want to encourage people to continue to support recycling as we go through those changes."

Mayor Tim Johnston says that for communities of its size, Thompson has shown to be a leader in terms of the amount of material it recycles.

"We are very close to the communities of Brandon and Winnipeg in terms of the amount that's being recycled per person, so that is quite an achievement."

Johnston says that he believes, with some of the proposals that are on the table regarding recycling in the City of Thompson, recycling will continue to improve for the community.

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