Originally published Feb 14/18 The Reminder. Flin Flon, Mb. Sponsored by North of 53 Consumers Coop

It finally felt like things at the Recycling Centre were normal again Friday afternoon.
 
It started the week before Christmas when the new baler installation took over our small space. Some work was done, but materials began to pile up.
 
There is always a large volume of recyclables after Christmas that keeps us busy well into January. This year’s pile became exceptionally large as the flu took out one person for the first week of January and another for two days.
 
The death of one of our employees was a shock. One employee needed the week off. The rest of us were not at our best.

The recycling trailers beside Canadian Tire and from Denare Beach were neglected.
We finally cleared the floor by the end of January.

This allowed our electrician to be able to put in the wiring to the new baler. But it refused to run.  It seemed a safety switch somewhere wasn’t in the right position.

The forklift broke down. It is critical to our operations as we need to stack 350 – 450 kg bales. So we rented one for a week, finally found someone to fix it and ordered the new radiator.  

We found the switch on the baler, made an adjustment and the new baler is running.
The new radiator for the forklift arrived.

The rented forklift left Thursday afternoon. Our forklift arrived Friday morning.

Operations have returned to normal although the new baler changes ‘normal’.  Co-mingled materials are fed into it by a conveyor. It is easier and faster.

We still need to adjust the sensors for the bale size. The 550 kg bales are too big.
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Our team will figure it out.

Originally published Feb 7/18 The Reminder. Flin Flon, Mb. Sponsored by North of 53 Consumers Coop.

Convenience is the key to encouraging people to recycle. The most convenient way for residents to get their recyclables to the Recycling Centre is to have it picked up at their homes.

It is also the most expensive in terms of cost to the service provider.

In 2014 Creighton began providing curbside pickup. It didn’t change their costs very much as they were providing garbage pickup twice a week. They changed the second day to recycling.

Garbage pickup in Flin Flon is only once a week. The Council decided the additional cost for recycling pickup was not a priority. Instead they decided to encourage recycling by purchasing a trailer that would be parked in a central location to make dropping off recyclables more convenient.

The trailer has been in the vacant lot beside Canadian Tire and Walmart since the summer of 2014. It has made recycling more convenient based on comments and how often it needs to be emptied.  

The Recycling Centre has purchased another trailer to make recycling more convenient. The landfill attendants observed large quantities of recyclable cardboard going into the landfill. It was decided to park a trailer at the landfill to collect the cardboard.  

Recyclable electronics will also be collected in the trailer.

The trailers are manufactured by Excel Industries in The Pas. There were several parked in convenient locations in that community and several others to collect recyclables that are taken to The Pas Recycling Centre.

The trailers are used for pickups now that the Town of The Pas, the RM of Kelsey and OCN provide curbside pickup.

The Recycling Centre provides curbside pickup in Flin Flon for a fee.  Information is available at www.flinflonrecycling.org. 

Originally published Jan 31/18 The Reminder. Flin Flon, Mb. Sponsored by North of 53 Consumers Coop.

China has been in the news lately because they decided not to recycle any more of the world’s garbage (I prefer to call it waste). This left many recycling programs with no place to send their recyclables.

I spoke with our contact person at Cascades Recovery, the company we ship recyclables to find out how this change would affect us.

I was told that Cascades does not ship to China.  

The recycling industry knew the China decision was coming last spring already.  Many cardboard mills in North America shut down for maintenance and/or upgrades as they saw this as an opportunity to process more cardboard.

As a result, cardboard wasn’t moving for a few months and prices fell. At the time of my conversation most of the mills had reopened so cardboard had begun moving again. We are hoping prices will improve.

The other material news reports mentioned that China is not taking is plastic. I found out this was the lower grade plastics, mostly film like plastic bags and mixed content plastic. We do not collect plastic bags for recycling so this will also not affect us.

Cascades ships plastic to North American mills. The only problem with that would be if the United States decided to impose tariffs on it.

A friend directed me to a very interesting CBC radio series called Wasted.  The second episode mentioned that recycling does help the environment but it still takes from it because it requires energy.

The best thing to do is reduce the amount of things we use because everything we have comes from the earth.

Check out the series ‘Wasted’ at www.cbc.ca/daysix . Dates are January 5, 12 and 19.  

Originally published Jan 24/18 The Reminder. Flin Flon, Mb. Sponsored by North of 53 Consumers Coop.

While working on the dock one day early in the new year I noticed a gentleman dropping off two red bags of recyclables. I suggested he leave the bags on his front curb on Wednesday mornings and we would pick them up. I explained that he only needs to use one red bag. The rest can go in clear bags as the red bags are quite expensive.

He readily agreed on the expensive part. I explained that the price covers the cost of picking it up.

I think he thought that he had to buy red bags to recycle anything. I’m glad we had the conversation!

We use a variety of methods to give out information about recycling. This newspaper column is one of them. We appreciate the sponsorship by the North of 53 Consumer’s Coop.

We asked people how they got recycling information on our survey in 2016. The choices were: other people, website, Facebook, pamphlet, and calling the Centre. The sign by Hapnot was also in the survey.  

We have added messages on CFAR in the last few months.

I was surprised that the most common response on the survey was ‘from other people’. Word of mouth is wonderful as long as the information is correct. As I worked through the mountain of bags after Christmas I think that isn’t always the case.

For example, we have advertised that wrapping paper is not recyclable for many years but we still found a lot of it this year.

Please check the list on the website or the pinned pictures on the Facebook group or call the Centre.
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If it’s on the list, recycle it. If it’s not, it is garbage.  

Originally published Jan 17/18 The Reminder. Flin Flon, Mb. Sponsored by North of 53 Consumers Coop.

There is always lots of recycling after the Christmas holiday. But this year is breaking all records.

Check out the picture on the Flin Flon Recycling group page on Facebook. Hopefully it is much smaller as you are reading this.

We parked the new trailer destined for the landfill beside Canadian Tire as we have not had time or space to empty the other one. A dozen bales of cardboard from the Coop are sitting outside.

There have been some unusual circumstances. The new baler installation slowed us down for most of three days the week before Christmas. The flu took out one employee for 4 days and another for two the first week of January.

Last week one of our employees passed away so we are not functioning as well as usual. One staff member needed the week away.

The mountain is more than the result of these factors. We are a victim of our own success. The number of people and businesses recycling has increased.

Hopefully the new baler will be up and running next week, although we have to find the conveyor under all the materials waiting to be baled.

I have spent a lot of time these days past bagging materials for baling. There are many bags that require very little attention. All the materials inside are recyclable and not drippy, sticky or gooey.

I am also learning what information people need.

We cannot recycle gift wrap, plastic bags, food bags, or coffee cups. Portable garage tarps, fans, vacuum cleaners, Styrofoam, children's toys, clothing and chairs go to the landfill.

We appreciate your patience as we work hard to catch up.
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This is a good problem to have. 

Originally published Jan10/18 The Reminder. Flin Flon, Mb. Sponsored by North of 53 Consumers Coop.

I worked on the dock more than usual last week as we try to catch up after Christmas. It gave me opportunity to talk with people dropping off recyclables. These conversations in person or on Facebook help me understand a few things about what people need to know.

It started with pizza boxes.

Pizza boxes are made of corrugated cardboard which is recyclable if it is clean. If there are large stains or pizza stuck to them they are garbage. I saw some very clean ones from recent fundraisers as the pizza was on a foil pan. A paper under the pizza would also help. Both the pan and the paper cannot be recycled.
 
A board member posted on Facebook about pizza boxes and included a request to remove Styrofoam packing from cardboard boxes.  It is not recyclable. Removing it slows down the baling process.

I commented that I like the packing pieces made from compressed paper as we can recycle them and they  probably contain recycled paper.

The next comment asked about recycling envelopes that have plastic inside. Envelopes made of only paper even if they have a window are recyclable. Envelopes that are paper with plastic padding inside are not.

Anything made out of two materials such as paper and plastic or cardboard and tin like many coffee cans, are not recyclable. The only exception is juice boxes (tetra packs) which are recyclable.

The next comment stated “I know I have been sending you stuff I shouldn’t” with a very sad face.

I responded with “No worries. I am always glad for these conversations as they provide info people need.”
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Please call 204 687 6169, email [email protected] or use Facebook to ask questions. 

January total – 37,799 kg
       
        Co-mingled* - 13,528 kg
        Office Paper – 4,215 kg
        Cardboard – 15,305 kg
        Glass – 3,994 kg
        Books -  

Total for 2018 – 37,799 kg
Total for 2017 – 36,983 kg
Difference – +846 kg
 
Batteries – 65 kg

* Co-mingled is unsorted materials sent to Winnipeg for sorting


Comments - There were about 40 bales of cardboard from the Coop waiting in the yard that were not counted so our number would have been much higher if we had been able to process them. 
We will be breaking these bales and baling them with other cardboard as they are smaller than our bales and sell for $40.00 less per tonne.