MOUNTAIN VIEW COUNTY - Member municipalities have provided feedback to a Mountain View Regional Waste Management Commission (MVRWMC) survey into the commission’s possible future role in supporting and managing recycling services.
Five of the six member municipalities in the commission are calling for the closure of all recycling collection sites; Mountain View County is calling for a reduction in service levels to transfer stations and landfills only.
Coordinating the management and disposal of solid waste, the commission is made up representatives from Mountain View County, the Town of Olds, the Town of Didsbury, the Town of Carstairs, the Town of Sundre and Village of Cremona.
The commission operates recycling centres – which see the collection of items such as cardboard, glass and paper – in Olds, Sundre, Cremona, Didsbury, Eagle Hill and Midway.
The Recycling Services Survey was recently sent to members to gather input regarding the current level of service of recycling within the commission’s service area.
The survey offers three alternatives: maintain current service levels; reduce services levels to transfer station and landfill only; close all recycling collection sites.
The demand for recycled materials has declined sharply in recent years, prompting the survey, said Mountain View County deputy reeve and commission chairman Greg Harris.
Didsbury, Olds, Carstairs, Sundre and Cremona have all sided in favour of the option that calls for the closing of all recycle collection sites, while Mountain View County decided in favour of the option that calls for a reduction in services levels.
“All research shows that the majority, if not all, of this (material collected at the centres) is taken by a third party transport company and put into the landfill,” said Harris.
“There is so much that is not going anywhere except into a landfill and we are paying a lot of money collectively to do that. There is just no place to send it (for recycling).”
Maintaining the recycling centres in Olds, Sundre, Cremona, Didsbury, Eagle Hill and Midway will cost the commission about $500,000 in 2022.
“The issue is not getting out of recycling; that happened already and it started primarily when China stopped taking a lot of recycling and waste in 2018,” he said. “The issue is we keep calling it recycling but it is not being recycled. It’s a very expensive stream of municipal solid waste.”
The commission will now be exploring next steps, he said.
“We will have a special meeting probably in January or February,” he said. “The decision isn’t just ours because we have all the membership. We’ve started this process to get their feedback.
“We have a waste management agreement with the municipalities and they would have to be amended to reflect the new wishes of the municipalities. Then we could move forward with closing the recycling centres.”
The commission plans an extensive public consultation process on the issue moving forward, he said.
“There will be a significant education process to make sure people understand what we are doing and why we are doing it,” he said. “In the end this could save the taxpayers in the towns and the county $300,000 to $500,000 a year.”
In any event, MVRWMC will continue to offer recycling options for such things as used oil, anti-freeze, small appliances and computer parts, he said.
“Anything that continues to have a recycling stream, we will continue to recycle. In particular we need to have places where residents throughout the county can take hazardous materials,” he said.
