Based on results from a recent survey, the Sundre Recycling Centre provides a popular service for municipal and rural residents as well as businesses while at the same time reducing the amount of waste sent to the landfill.
Based on results from a recent survey, the Sundre Recycling Centre provides a popular service for municipal and rural residents as well as businesses while at the same time reducing the amount of waste sent to the landfill.
Since being relocated in 2015 to the new site in the southeast industrial zone from its former location near the Sundre Pioneer Museum in the southwest, the facility has been used frequently. However, there have also been ongoing issues regarding abuse and misuse of the site, council heard recently during a presentation by Jim Hall, operations manager.
Among those problems are cardboard boxes not being broken down properly to maximize the use of space in the bins, the theft of soil from a planter that staff had installed to improve the facility's esthetics, and even non-recyclable items including used oil pails and discarded toilets being dropped off and moved to the transfer station at the municipality's expense, he said.
"This is the biggest threat to our recycle centre," he said about discarded pails of used oil, which represent an environmental concern if they spill and leak into the ground.
"This is kind of a nasty habit that can happen. Typically they're from farms — that's what I find. I've done my research on the types of oils that are left there and they're for farm equipment."
Sundre's recycling facility does not handle any kinds of used oils, but the transfer site east of town does offer a disposal service, he said.
"We want to get people educated."
Overflowing bins have been another of the ongoing issues at the recycling centre, he said.
"It's a very popular site and people are recycling, so that's a win-win in our view."
However, since the municipality rolled out blue curbside recycling bins last summer, residents have significantly reduced the amount of cardboard they drop off at the facility. The bins frequently end up overflowing because of local business or industrial use, he said.
"There's some research and data that shows that some of the businesses in town are using it to fill the bins with industrial cardboard, which we weren't planning on."
Recapping some facts about the recycling centre, he said most of the cardboard comes from businesses, not residences; that rural residents also represent a major portion of the site's users; and that the cost to the municipality to haul large items to the transfer site from the recycling centre over six months in 2016 was almost $300.
The company contracted to empty the bins, Can Pak, hauls out cardboard three times a week, and even once noticed following a Thursday pickup that the cardboard bins were already full the following morning, and not as a result of residential use, he said.
Among the suggestions submitted through the survey to deal with abuse and misuse at the site was to introduce and enforce a $500 fine to deter offenders. But even with surveillance equipment, a lot of information is needed to lay charges, he said.
Laurie Porritt, operations administrator, had compiled results from the municipality's survey into a comprehensive digital presentation, and Hall discussed the highlights during council's Jan. 23 workshop.
Anyone who is interested in viewing the full analysis of the survey can find it here.
Wrapping up the presentation on the recycling centre, Hall opened the floor to questions from council and asked officials to consider whether the municipality should continue to allow businesses to use the facility, and if so, how that would affect businesses that are paying for their own commercial pickup.
Coun. Paul Isaac suggested sitting down with Mountain View County council to point out Sundre's recycling centre is a shared issue between the municipalities.
"I think they're very willing to help with it," said Isaac.
"Let's sit down with the county of Mountain View and then continue with education in our community. It's very clear that it's needed," he said about the recycling centre.
"All you have to do is drive by to realize people are using it. So that's a good thing. Now we just have to have people use it the right way, and we have to have it funded by both municipalities."
