16
April 2022
Celebrating Over 25 Years of Service to Our Communities!
Dawson Trail Dispatch
Tache Councillor on Mission to Improve Waste Disposal Initiatives
By Dan Guetre
One RM of Tache Councillor has spent over 20 years bringing ideas to the municipality to create a more responsible process when it comes to waste disposal, something all municipal governments struggle with. In early April, Councillor Jacques Trudeau will attend the Solid Waste Association of America (SWANA) Conference to be held in Banff on April 4-7. Upon returning and reporting to council, he is hoping to bring new information and initiates that the municipality could adopt to benefit residents and make the waste they produce less impactful on the environment and pocketbook. Since the early 2000s Tache’s Organizational Bylaws have assigned the representative duties of SWANA to Trudeau. Around 2011, Trudeau was also elected to the Prairie Chapter of SWANA (now called Northern Lights Chapter, which now includes NWT) as 1 of 2 Manitoba Reps. Trudeau has developed a keen interest in new ideas evolving in solid waste management. “Going back in time [to] 1999, my first term in office, I attended AMM’s Municipal Official Seminar in Brandon with Mayor Danylchuk and another newly elected council member,” said Trudeau. “At the end of conference we were advised that SWANA was having a solid waste meeting and anyone interested could attend. Knowing absolutely nothing about SWANA, I asked Mayor Danylchuk if we should attend. He said probably a good idea as we had just opened our new solid waste facility and organizing transfer station in Monominto.” “Information is always good to have,” added Trudeau. “So we attended our first SWANA conference.” Trudeau did not waste time proposing a new concept at council. “At the new facility, Tache had small used oil collection containers which were not always being emptied in a timely fashion and often had mini accidental spills due to carelessness of clients,” explained Trudeau. “Well at conference we discovered that we could get a used oil collection metal building with a sealed bottom to protect environment, including a large volume tank which would be emptied on a regular basis and used oil and filters disposed of.” After discovering the project cost of $25,000 would be cut in half if they signed up, Trudeau, Danylchuk and councillor Perrier presented it to council and after a unanimous approval, the project was put in the queue to build. “Once received, installed and operational our used oil and oil filter collection grew,” said Trudeau. “I am proud to report that for at least the past 10 years we have been
Jacques Trudeau, a councillor with the RM of Tache is proud of the work his municipality has taken on over the years to create a more environmentally beneficial and cost effective waste disposal plan. Photo by Jeannette Fréchette
achieving the highest volumes of used oil collection in Manitoba. At first we were happy to collect and get rid of used oil at no cost. Today we are receiving a small annual revenue from used oil and filters.” Trudeau is also proud of council’s decision to dig a collection cell and evaporate the leachate (water that gets contaminated by garbage). This project was developed with their engineering firm who so happened to have a young engineer associated with SWANA. “He had knowledge of how to collect leachate and how to dispose of it,” explained Trudeau. “The standard option was to truck it to Winnipeg’s sewage treatment plants... a very expensive solution, plus not knowing how long Winnipeg would allow us to haul to their plant.” Working with the engineer and SWANA, Tache found a less expensive and environmentally sound solution.
“We have been doing this for many years now,” said Trudeau. “Tache had one of the first leachate evaporations site in Canada. We had to experiment with different
site for used shingles [and] may be looking at collecting used mattresses,” said Trudeau. “They take a lot of airspace in land fill and metal springs in mattresses cause equipment damage. Used mattresses could be shipped to Mother Earth Recycling in Winnipeg to be disassembled and mattress material recycled.” Through SWANA a program called Clean Farms had been organized in Alberta, Saskatchewan and is now in Manitoba. “It will now be active at Tache’s solid waste facility,” said Trudeau. Clean farm collects used plastic grain bags, silage plastic covers, bale twine and more from farms and agribusinesses. A number of years ago Manitoba Government re-classified solid waste facilities. “Tache’s solid waste facility was classified as a “Class 1 by the Province, which means we must operate on tighter Provincial rules, regulations and licensing,” explained Trudeau.
“Information is always good to have.” types of pumps, spray nozzles and take wind direction and speed into consideration.” Initially, SWANA was more active in Alberta and Saskatchewan. Both provinces were innovative in reducing waste by using zero waste principles and practices. Eventually Manitoba became more interested in those principles also. According to Trudeau, when Manitoba moved forward it started by organizing used paint, electronic waste, fluorescent tubes, used tire collection programs and much more. He even sees these programs expanding every year. “In Tache we have developed a
“Approximately 5 years ago, the Government of Manitoba was looking for an organization to train land fill operators and staff to manage facilities,” added Trudeau. “I was instrumental along with Sheri Praski the SWANA NLC administrator in convincing our provincial government to accept SWANA NLC as official land fill operators’ trainer.” “Through SWANA, Tache has also gathered information for future biodegradable site or composting site,” said Trudeau. He explained that the municipality’s practices in the past were also actually shortening the lifespan of their municipal waste disposal sites. “At the Tache solid waste facility we had been using a caterpillar/ dozer to push and compact solids,” explained Trudeau. “At SWANA conferences we learned that we were not getting much compaction with our equipment and were wasting a lot of airspace.” Approximately 3 years ago Tache council purchased a used land fill compactor to run over garbage to break it down and compact it. Ultimately, this now extends the useful life of each cell which will also extend the useful life of their acreage and facility. A few years ago council members had noticed that there were operational issues at their solid waste facility. “To me it was clear that we needed a third party operational assessment of our solid waste site and transfer station,” said Trudeau. “I suggested to Council that we find someone through SWANA to do operational assessment. Council accepted the suggestion.” “Through his contacts, he found an experienced solid waste operator, who also did landfill assessments,” said Trudeau. “Over a 3 day period he visited the landfill and transfer station. He observed, spoke with staff, management and clients. He then prepared a report exposing our strengths and weaknesses. He also provided suggestions and/or guidelines as to how we could improve our facilities’ operations.” Trudeau believes managing solid waste is always changing through materials collected, rules and regulations. He is confident that innovative solutions do exist for most problems. He also is an advocate for continuous training to keep up with times and prepare for the future. He is excited to attend the conference and hopeful that when he returns he will have ideas to share with his council that could benefit the residents of the municipality. He is also grateful to be re-elected to SWANA NLC Board for another 2 year term as a Manitoba Rep and believes there are many benefits and information to be gained and shared that outweigh the costs of membership.