The Town of St. Paul is once again reducing the number of items that will be accepted for recycling at the transfer station.
“As of April 1, and this is not an April Fool’s joke, we will no longer be taking glass, plastics and tin,” said Ron Boisvert, CAO for the Town of St. Paul, explaining there is simply no market for those goods. Town representatives want to be up-front with the public and let them know that the items are going to the landfill and not being recycled, he said. In larger cities, recycling might be taken in blue boxes but often, said Boisvert, the contents end up in the landfill anyway. The town will continue to accept cardboard and paper for recycling.
However, residents are questioning if St. Paul could be doing more to support recycling, following the town’s decision to take over operating the program from St. Paul Abilities Network (SPAN). Coun. Trevor Kotowich, for one, noted he has been receiving three to four calls a day regarding operation of recycling.
Darlene Lepper, an employee of SPAN, a town resident and a social work student at Blue Quills First Nations College, separates, sorts and stores recyclables in her garbage until she or her husband can take the goods to the transfer station. When her husband returned from his last trip to drop off recyclables, saying the town was not accepting certain items, she became upset.
“I am very passionate about this,” said Lepper. “I know that maybe recycling is not a money-making business … but people should realize that the earth doesn’t need us but we need the earth. That is the bottom line.”
As a taxpayer, she said she would be willing to pay to support recycling, adding that she would also be willing to offer her services as a volunteer. “Maybe we need to take a closer look at where our tax dollars do go,” said Lepper. “Maybe part of that pie is going toward things that it shouldn’t be.”
She added that there might be options that have not been explored, such as working together with other towns in the area like Bonnyville and Cold Lake on recycling. “People need to get together and brainstorm.”
Tim Bear, executive director for SPAN, said that when his organization was handling recycling, it had found markets for all the recyclables, except for glass, and he said SPAN was actively seeking markets for the glass.
“Recycling is very manpower intensive,” explained Bear. “We supported people with disabilities to develop skills and contribute to the community through recycling.”
He said that recycling requires people to sort recyclables and also requires careful management to seek out a variety of companies that will take each item. Bear said often, SPAN had to stockpile materials like tin when the purchase price was low and wait until the price went up before shipping out the goods. “We also stockpiled cardboard when the price was down and sold when the price was high.”
SPAN also had a number of recycling bins at St. Paul schools and businesses that were used to collect recyclables; the organization would periodically send out a truck to drive around and collect the materials.
Bear explained that SPAN was charging the town a base rate of $60,000 and had asked the town for an increase of $10,000 to bring the base rate up to $70,000, said Bear, explaining that the money was used to cover overhead expenses.
“We need to pay the power bill. We have to have a license plate on our truck to go pick up the bins,” he said.
Bear said that he thought SPAN was conducting the recycling service for a close to comparable amount as the town is now paying to private company Allied Paper, with which it is partnering to continue offering recycling services.
“Unfortunately, the company that they have contracted with will only handle a couple of the many products that we managed which means that the rest of the products will be land-filled,” said Bear.
