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Recycling pilot project piques residents' interest
Even though it won’t start for another two months, Town of Olds residents have already started manifesting their interest in the town’s single-stream recycling pilot project.
“As an outcome of the story in the news media, we have probably had about 20 people call us up or different parts of the organization involved here to participate in the blue bin project,” said Larry Wright, director of operations for the Town of Olds.
Town administration is still finalizing the project’s details with Mountain View Regional Waste Management Commission (MVRWMC) and Waste Management.
“We are working with the route selection and things of that nature,” said Wright.
The pilot project will give 800 Olds residences a blue 96-gallon roll-out cart, in which the residents will be able to put all their recyclables. The participating residences will be serviced twice a month by the MVRWMC and Waste Management Canada. Participants will pay a monthly $2 environmental fee for the service. MVRMWC will use its compost truck to service the blue bins.
MVRWMC CAO Don Reid says the pilot project will have an immediate impact on the lifespan of the landfill.
“We definitely think there will be a lot less waste,” he said.
He expects to see a 15 to 20 per cent increase in recycled material collected from the 800 Olds residences.
According to Reid, Olds sends 1,452 metric tones of waste to the landfill every year. This number does not include commercial waste. In comparison, residents recycle 470 metric tonnes and compost 785 tonnes.
“We need to recycle and compost more. We only have about 23, 25 years left on this landfill. If we don’t start now, we are going to have issues later on,” said Reid.
“With the current growth rate from within Mountain View County, we can now see that we need to make every effort to divert as much waste from our landfill as possible.”
Currently, Olds recycles 35 per cent of its waste on average. MVRWMC wants to raise the recycling rate to 50 per cent and beyond once all municipalities in the county use the single-stream recycling program.
“In 2005, Alberta Environment set an achievement goal for all Alberta communities to reach an 85 per cent rate by 2015,” said Reid.
He said that almost all municipalities in the county have indicated that they would like to participate in a similar pilot project in the near future.
The recycling pilot project will start in Olds this July and will last for a year.
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