Fuchsia Dragon | [email protected]
“How are we going to do recycling? Because it [the system] is broken,” said John Greathead, director of Operations, at a meeting of Jasper Municipal Council on Tuesday.
Greathead said many municipalities are dropping cardboard and plastic recycling, and glass recycling has largely been abandoned throughout North America.
“The little glass we do recycle we pay about $13,000 to ship it to a user in BC that grinds it down and uses it for sandblasting,” he said, recommending the program be suspended as it is “costly and provides negligible benefit”.
In fact, Greathead said there is very little cost recovery available for any current recycling initiatives, while the cost for the commercial side alone is $650,000 per year.
Other issues in Greathead’s report included cardboard in alleyways being a fire hazard, the composting program is not being effective in winter, and the paper shredding service usually offered during the Hazardous Round-up day was found to be used predominantly by businesses (about 98 per cent), and not households as intended (about 2 per cent).
So what is the solution?
According to Greathead, it’s a problem a lot of municipalities are facing.
“All of us are looking at the same problem and we can’t come up with a solution,” he said.
“Everyone is just on their own. Are we doing anything good with our recycling?”
Greathead asked for $120,000 for an Operations Service Review - Broken down to: $10,000 for roads, $10,000 for grounds, $30,000 for water, $30,000 for sewer and $40,000 for garbage and recycling.
Councillor Scott Wilson said: “If other communities don’t have the answer either, how can we expect a company to review us and have these great solutions?”
The outcome of previous consultation reviews gave councillor Paul Butler hesitation to the matter.
“I would hate us to have some milk-toast wishy washy report at the end of it,” he said. “I’ve seen enough of consultations that don’t get us where we thought they would.”
Mayor Richard Ireland suggested council figure out what steps it can already make and “see what’s left and if we need a consultant to assist us”.
“I think council could better answer those philosophical questions ourselves,” he said.
Council voted to put $120,000 in the Operations department’s 2020 budget for service reviews but Greathead must return to council before any of that money is spent.
