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Steve Carell steps out of his comfort zone and into the spotlight in ‘Foxcatcher’
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Red Deer Advocate THURSDAY, NOV. 20, 2014
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Reduce Reuse Recycle THE CITY OF RED DEER SPENDS $3 MILLION ANNUALLY ON RECYCLING. CITY AND RECYCLING INDUSTRY OFFICIALS SAYS THERE IS ROOM FOR IMPROVEMENT.
Photo by JEFF STOKOE/Advocate staff
Mark Pedersen of Can-Pak Environmental in Red Deer in his warehouse where all collected recyclables are baled and prepared for shipment to a sorting facility. This is the second in a series of stories on the City of Red Deer’s environmental programs and its initiatives for the future. BY CRYSTAL RHYNO ADVOCATE STAFF Once a week, Red Deerians plunk down their blue boxes bursting with paper, plastic, glass and cardboard for collection. And the long trail to salvaging the material begins. It is a journey that costs the WHAT GOES IN A city almost $3 million a year. But BLUE BOX? A2 there is payback both in the material diverted from the landfill, and in the sale of the recyclable goods. Nevertheless, both city officials and recycle industry players say there is room for improvement. Individual blue box contents are dumped into a truck and taken to the material recovery facility in Riverside Industrial Park. At the recovery site, the recyclables are sorted and baled. From there, they are shipped to British Columbia, Washington and elsewhere in Alberta to be sold. Ultimately, many of the recyclables are made into other products such as papers, cartons for eggs or apples, and roofing products. The city gets 75 per cent of the revenue from the sale of recyclables and the contractor, Waste Management Inc., gets the rest. Janet Whitesell, the city’s waste management superintendent, said the city splits the revenue this way to provide some financial incentive for the contractor to sort and market the materials. In 2013, the revenue from the sale of goods was just over $227,000, about eight per cent of the $2,845,500 total cost to run the program. That cost includes operating the multi-family recycling collection and the city’s two dropoff depots. Residents pay $6.10 monthly for curbside pickup. About 93 per cent of households in the city take part of the program. The monthly fee profits go back into the blue box program. They don’t go into other diversion programs at the city’s waste management facility.
WEATHER Cloudy. High 1. Low -3.
FORECAST ON A2
INDEX Four sections Alberta . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . A3 Business. . . . . . . . . . . . .D6,D7 Canada . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . A5 Classified . . . . . . . . . . . . D1-D4 Comics . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . D5 Entertainment . . . . . . . . . . . . C8 Sports. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . B1-B5
Photo by CRYSTAL RHYNO/Advocate staff
Jen Stuart and Franklin Berry look for materials that cannot be recycled at the recycling facility operated by Waste Management in Red Deer. The items accepted in the blue box program range from mixed paper, cardboard boxes, glass, newspapers and tin cans. Plastics marked with the recycling symbol No. 2, such as rigid bleach and cooking oil containers, are the only plastics accepted. The city’s hesitation to expand the plastics collected has let to criticism, especially when other communities such as Lacombe accept No. 1 to 7 plastics in recycling programs. Red Deer had anticipated shipping its plastics
to Plasco Energy Group’s planned waste-to-energy plant in Central Alberta but the project fell through a few years ago. Whitesell said the city wants to ensure there’s a secure market for mixed plastics before expanding the program. Mixed plastics, generally the low end of plastics, have mostly been sold to China. But in recent years, that market has become unreliable. No. 2 is considered a higher grade of plastic.
Please see RECYCLING on Page A2
Sona jailed for role in robocalls scandal Interfering with a citizen’s right to vote merits real jail time, an Ontario judge declared Wednesday. Story on PAGE A5
PLEASE
RECYCLE