The Northwestern Ontario Recycling Association is hoping to resume blue box pickups in town Wednesday as it rushes to fix another broken truck.
“About a week-and-a-half ago, we had a major truck difficulty with the Fort Frances truck,” Cindy Buttner of Buttner Enterprises, which picks up the blue boxes here, said Tuesday morning.
“We thought it was going to be repaired Monday morning but, of course, they sent us the wrong parts,” she added.
The truck was on the Dryden highway when a flywheel broke loose, hitting its transmission and engine.
The right replacement parts were expected to arrive in Dryden this morning, with the truck ready to run again Wednesday.
NORA is expecting to begin Monday’s schedule on Wednesday in order to have all the recycling picked up by the end of the week.
“I think everyone should just leave [their blue boxes] out there if they can,” noted Buttner. “We’re still going to be picking it up. We’re pushing Atikokan into the weekend.
“If it’s wet, that’s fine, we’re still going to pick it up,” she added.
Regular pick-ups should be back on track in May when a brand new compacting truck arrives in Fort Frances, leaving one of the older vehicles as a back-up truck in case of breakdowns.
“The new truck is being delivered in the first week of May,” said Buttner. “It’s a compactor, too, so definitely it’s going to mean we can handle more material in the truck.”
In addition to its fleet of aging trucks, NORA has had to accommodate a soaring increase in the amount of recyclables being put on the curb across the Kenora and Rainy River districts.
“There’s been a 24 percent increase delivered to the plant in 2000 compared to 1999,” said Buttner, who attributed the increase to bag tag fees implemented in several area municipalities.
Fort Frances Times
Local News from Across the Rainy River District
