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Northern
www.northernsentinel.com
Volume 58 No. 28
Wednesday, July 10, 2013
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1.30 INCLUDES TAX
Recycling changes coming Cameron Orr Director Ken Maitland with Kitimat Understanding the Environment (KUTE) said there are questions that need to be answered regarding possible changes to recycling processing next year. A shift is taking place in paper and packaging, where instead of taxpayers funding its recycling pick-up, the industries which produced the product will pick up the tab. That will be a service run through the non-profit Multi Material BC(MMBC). An offer from MMBC has been given to local governments who already collect recyclables or garbage from the curb side, said MMBC Chair Allen Langdon. Langdon said the offers are to provide recycling collection for the paper and packaging materials, and whoever gets the contract, whether the local government or a private contractor, will be paid on a perhousehold basis. While it’s a good sounding plan on paper, the practicality of it may prove challenging for
KUTE’s own depot, if that’s where this extra material will go. “The issue for KUTE is once the materials are collected they have to go someplace, and be sorted, handled, packaged and shipped,” said Maitland. Although KUTE would be paid for such processing under the MMBC program, their location doesn’t leave a lot of room to participate. “For the depot, they will be paid a sum for the material processed by weight, tonnage,” he said. “But this program has eight categories, so there’s paper, there’s packaging, there’s grades of cardboard, there’s plastic containers, metal containers, you have to have plastic film being separate, so [there’s] a total of eight of these streams that will come about.” Keeping in mind the volumes KUTE already deals with, it may be impossible. “At this point, they haven’t defined what ... a load looks like, so when KUTE deals with material today, we need to ship single strand material, so I need to ship a truckload of
20 tonnes, 22 tonnes, of cardboard,” explained Maitland. “I have to have the same volume in paper. So because we’re running the cardboard and the paper, you now have to stockpile 20 tonnes each. So now you have to store 40 tonnes of material, plus the truck doesn’t come as soon as you have that, so you have to have some buffer space.” What KUTE doesn’t know yet is how material has to be packaged before shipping. For instance he doesn’t know if they can ship out mixed loads, or if they have to send out loads of the same product. If they have to store 20 tonnes each of those eight streams of materials “now instead of being a processing centre, you’re a warehouse.” “You have to have a huge facility,” he said. Other questions KUTE hasn’t yet had answers to is how many truck loads of garbage goes to the landfill each day, a number which would help them figure out how much material they’d be expecting. Continued on page 3
PTI moving ahead on project Cameron Orr Vice president for business development with PTI Group said as much work as it was getting to the point they’re at now, “now the real hard work begins too.” Sean Crockett said the company is now in the conceptual and engineering phase for their proposed work lodge, which recently received approved zoning from the District of Kitimat to build in the Strawberry Meadows subdivision. But even though they have the clear to eventually construct the facility, they won’t close themselves up from the community. “Our approach to this point and our commitment going forward is to be very open and transparent about the plans and to continue to consult with the community,” he said, saying that’s the key to their success in Kitimat so far. “Our goal is to get the support to do our project...and to be a long term part of the community,” he added. The company, he said, anticipates opening the lodge to guests starting in late 2014, although the
“Our approach to this point and our commitment going forward is to be very open and transparent about the plans and to continue to consult with the community.” company still has approvals to go through with their own board of directors, and at the municipal level, he said. Crockett does note that the company has not made any capital commitments quite yet on the project and is so far just in the planning stages, he said. After a lengthy process, PTI Group received their zoning amendments, which would allow them to construct a temporary workforce accommodation facility, which is planned to house, at it’s eventual peak, 2,100. There were many conditions to the approval, including contributing to an affordable housing fund.
Kitimat’s Canada Day fireworks lit up the night sky over the Riverlodge on July 1, capping off the usual full, busy day of celebrations around town. The fireworks themselves were said to be a particularly good set from a community which regularly puts on a good show. More photos and details from Canada Day on page 7.
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Another fire at Aluminum City Motel ... page 9