The way Labrador West residents handle waste is changing and the future looks bright for recycling.
Statistics Canada recently reported that Newfoundland and Labrador the worst province in Canada when it comes to recycling, likely because many communities don’t have access to recycling facilities.
However, Marg Pinkston, manager of the Labrador West Green Depot, says they see an 85 per cent return of beverage containers, one of the highest rates in the province.
“I think we are the top depot in Newfoundland and Labrador with regards to recycling,” said Pinkston. “If people didn’t support us we wouldn’t be in it. So, I would say we’re in good shape, actually, but there’s always room for improvement.”
She added that they’re getting bigger and better and she hopes that down the road, they’ll be able to recycle everything.
Business of Recycling
Right now they recycle beverage containers including aluminum cans, plastic containers, glass bottles, drink boxes, steel cans, gable top containers, alcoholic containers, and other plastics such as yogurt drink bottles. The list is determined by the Multi Materials Stewardship Board.
These items get turned into things like cans, jackets, carpets, insulation and fibrefill sleeping bags.
Pinkston hopes in the future they’ll also be able to recycle shampoo containers, tin cans and computers.
People get refunds on their container deposit, and Pinkston said many of them try to see how much they can recycle and how much money they can raise for worthy causes.
The Green Depot tries to make it easy for people to recycle, and there’s a new policy where people can put their name on their bags of recyclables and not wait around, and once the material has been counted, the money is deposited into their account.
The depot collects, crushes and ships the material to processing plants in New York, Nova Scotia and New Brunswick.
For Future Generations
Pinkston said there is a positive attitude towards recycling in Labrador West, but more needs to be done.
“Plastic does not disintegrate, it’s in the landfill forever, so if we keep this up, we’re going to run out of landfills and we’re polluting the air,” she said.
“If we plan on passing our province on to our children and grandchildren, what a mess we’re going to give them if we don’t clean up.”
Waste Management in Transition
Labrador City Coun. Peter Reccord said that they’re in a transition period in terms of waste management. The incinerator has been closed and a temporary landfill site opened.
People can still bring waste like metals, asbestos and construction material to the incinerator site and it gets hauled to the temporary landfill, but once the temporary landfill is set up to take those things, it will all go there.
That won’t be for another construction season, though, because they’re in the process of getting engineering specs approved by the government so they can issue a tender.
“Right now, everything’s mobile and we’re going through the process of getting the funding to build fixed infrastructure like a gate, power to the site, place for people to work out of, and a weigh scale,” Reccord said.
“Plastic does not disintegrate, it’s in the landfill forever, so if we keep this up, we’re going to run out of landfills and we’re polluting the air.” - Marg Pinkston
“It’s our hope that in late fall/early summer, we get some of that infrastructure built, so that we will be able to accommodate what’s happening.”
He said things are still up in the air in terms of a Labrador waste strategy, including a permanent landfill site.
“In the long run, if we can get a public drop-off set up here (at the temporary landfill site), so you have stations to drop off your stuff — we have to build that and it has to be funded — when we get that in place, then we’re in much better position to start some significant recycling options,” he said.
Weighing Recycling Options
He said he can see a day when fibre will be taken out of the waste stream completely, thereby reducing it significantly.
“We’re always going to be at some distance from the markets – that’s our geography – and our population base is such that you’re probably not going to see a full-fledged separation facility – we just don’t have the volume,” he explained.
Changing Attitudes
“There’s lots of people who believe that we can do a better job on our environment, and there’s also lots of people who feel there’s plenty of room in Labrador so you don’t have to worry about waste, but that’s blatantly untrue,” he said.
He said in the long run people will get the message that it’s not acceptable to dump things all over the place.
Composting
As for composting, there are several options including backyard composting, windrow composting and volunteer pilot projects.
“The way we handle waste will be more expensive than what we’ve done in the past. However, if we do it right over time, we’ll have less and less waste going to our landfills,” said Reccord.
“We’re a high consuming society, there’s no question, and we’ve got to find better ways of handling our waste.”
Tub grinder
The Labrador City town council took one positive step towards reducing construction and demolition waste at the incinerator site by approving the trial rental of a tub grinder at a town council meeting July 20.
The equipment will be brought to town by a vegetation company out of Springdale this week, said Reccord, and it can be used to turn wood products into pulp or composting or ground cover.
He explained that due to a surge of construction and domestic waste, a pile of material formed that poses a flammable risk at the incinerator site.
He said they’re going to see how well the grinder works on reducing the pile and the town might consider buying the equipment.
The grinder will cost approximately $8,000-$10,000 to rent it per week, Reccord estimated. To purchase one would cost about $250,000.
To get the most out of the technology, Reccord said he’d look into using the resulting wood chips as ground cover during winter, instead of earth.
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