At the recent Alberta Urban Municipalities Association's fall convention, Mountain View County's partnership with the Mountain View Regional Waste Management Commission received an honourable mention.The Minister's Awards for Municipal Excellence celebrate the accomplishments of local governments in Alberta. Municipalities are encouraged to share their leading practices as a way to learn from each other and as a way to improve services to their residents.Given recognition in the Partnerships Awards category for partnering with the Mountain View Regional Waste Management Commission (MVRWMC), Mountain View County developed a program to provide producers with environmentally responsible solutions for their waste agricultural plastics and wires.The commission was formed in 2001 to coordinate the management and disposal of solid waste for the municipalities of Carstairs, Didsbury, Olds, Sundre, Cremona and Mountain View County. A board of directors manages the board, appointed each year by councils from those municipalities and is operated with a permanent CAO.“Solid waste is one of the most serious environmental problems in the world and our goal is to promote environmental policies and practices that solve this problem by diverting as much waste as possible from disposal in landfills,” says the commission.They are also focused on reducing waste management expenses by operating an integrated waste management system, which includes reuse and reduction.In the past, the Mountain View Regional Waste Management Commission has been noticed for a few of their projects, including the Resource Recovery Centre. The commission developed the centre to capture waste – like wood, concrete, shingles and cardboard with great success.“People used to just dump everything,” Don Reid, CAO of the waste commission said. “By doing this we're extending the 40-year lifespan of our local landfill.”They also made history for being the first Canadian organization to ship a load of reclaimed agricultural twine to a Minnesota-based company.The MVRWMC operates waste transfer stations at Olds, Sundre, Didsbury, Water Valley, and the MVRWMC landfill, where MVRWMC transfers solid waste to the landfill site near Didsbury. The commission has recycle centres located in Olds, Sundre, Cremona, Didsbury, Carstairs, and Eagle Hill and provides recycling bins at all transfer stations in those municipalities as well.Albertans lead the country in per capita electronics recycling. More than 46,000 metric tonnes of electronic waste have been recycled since Alberta's electronics recycling program began in October 2004. This includes more than 750,000 computers, 460,000 printers, 830,000 monitors and 430,000 TVs that have been diverted from landfills.
