Funding concerns for the Northwestern Ontario Recycling Association have proven negligible as it heads into the fall in good financial condition.
“Everything’s going along the way it should be–the way we predicted in the budget,” NORA co-ordinator Keith Sveinson said. “I don’t see any reason we should run out of money.”
NORA even has received a $25,000 grant from the Waste Diversion Organization to help out.
“The Waste Diversion Organization is charged with a number of responsibilities, one of [which] is to supply grants to organizations that have plans to be more efficient,” Sveinson noted.
NORA will use the grant to lease a truck that can compact recyclables, such as containers, which take up a lot of space.
The new truck will service the Kenora area.
“In Kenora, there’s been a rather large increase in the number of recycling we’re picking up because of the garbage [dump] problem,” said Sveinson.
NORA also is hoping the Waste Diversion Organization will provide funding for two more compactors in 2001 to service the rest of the region.
And it plans to re-paint all of its current vehicles.
“I hope so. We’re getting quotes on that right now . . . they’re horrible looking,” admitted Sveinson.
Meanwhile, NORA chair Dennis Brown has been pushing for additional funding for recycling in Northwestern Ontario as a member of a provincial committee.
Earlier this year, the province rescinded a promise to fund half of the area’s recycling program.
“We’ve been really harping about this and I think now it’s going to pay off,” predicted Brown, who’s also the mayor of Atikokan. “We’re going to get half our funding covered.”