Duane Hicks
The presents and hospitality that are part of the holiday season also mean the accumulation of more boxes, wrapping paper, and other recyclable materials.
Fortunately, the two new stationary compactor units—with properly-sized hoppers and six 40-cubic-yard roll-off containers—now are operational at the Sixth Street West depot and should help alleviate the problem of overflowing “blue boxes.”
As of today, the old recycling bins will be gone and the public will be required to start using the compactor unit designated for them, Operations and Facilities manager Doug Brown told the Times yesterday afternoon.
A Public Works staff member will be on-site for the next five days to help get the public used to it, he added.
This is how the new system works:
•take the ramp up to the new compactor unit;
•open the compactor door if the compactor is not activated;
•if the compactor unit is making noise, that means it is in the middle of a compaction cycle (wait until it is quiet and then open the door);
•dump your recyclables into the compactor (the opening to the compactor unit is 44” wide and 39” high, leaving plenty of room for people to insert their recyclables).
That said, users should be breaking down their cardboard boxes when they drop them off; and
•stand back and let the door close on its own.
That’s it—the town will do the rest.
The compactor unit is equipped with cameras inside and out so town staff can see what is being put into the compactor and when it is full.
When the five-cubic-yard hopper in the compactor unit is getting full, an operator either at Public Works or at the airport will activate the compactor remotely via a tablet computer.
This means it will be operational from 7:30 a.m.-10:30 p.m.
If the compactor fills up overnight, it will be activated first thing in the morning.
Safety is not a concern. Cameras will let them see if anyone, by accident, is in the hopper of the compactor.
When activated, the compactor will crush the recyclables and feed them into an adjacent container.
Once the container is full, it’s swapped out for an empty one.
Once several of the containers are full, the town will call a contractor to take them to the Emterra Group recycling facility in Winnipeg.
Each container is estimated to hold at least eight tonnes of recyclables.
The recycling depot also has a second compactor unit, which is being used exclusively for the recyclables picked up during the bi-weekly curbside collection.
The public does not have access to this compactor unit, which is located further back in the Public Works yard.
The truck that collects the “blue box” items every two weeks simply will drive up to the unit and dump the recyclables into its hopper.
It will crush and feed the items into a container, just like the compactor the public uses.
The upgrades are meant to save the town time and money, noted Brown.
Up until now, the truck dumped the recyclables into a pile in the transfer station garage (this is the same place recyclables from the four depot bins have gone, as well).
Public Works staff had to use a front-end loader to load the recyclables into a walking floor trailer, which then was shipped away for processing.
Under the new system, the manpower and equipment (loader) once used to load the walking floor trailer, as well as emptying the four drop-off bins on a regular basis, will be freed up to do other maintenance tasks for the town, Brown said.
It also should mean less mess for Public Works to clean up at the recycling depot, where overflowing bins have been a common sight each Monday morning.
In fact, the new system is expected to save the town $63,588 a year.
Brown said the new recycling depot almost was ready this summer, but there was an unfortunate delay in getting the wireless activation network operational.
But now that it’s working, he’s glad to finally have the new system up and running.
“This took way too long. I want the public to use the new technology,” Brown stressed yesterday, adding the holiday season means an upsurge in packing materials which get dropped off.
He admitted he’s a little worried some people won’t bother to use the hopper and just leave their recyclables outside it.
“Let’s use the hopper,” Brown urged.
The upgrades cost about $180,000, of which about $112,000 will be paid for with Stewardship Ontario’s Continuous Improvement Fund grant.
The town will pay for its portion using federal gas tax revenues it previously had received from the government.
