An olive branch from Mountain View County officials, who through written correspondence requested the Town of Sundre consider pushing back the planned closing date of the recycling centre, was refused by the local council last week .
A letter signed by the county’s chief administrative officer, Jeff Holmes, says the site has largely been cleaned up under a new contractor that has been maintaining the site.
“Mountain View County council discussed the closure at their meeting on December 5, 2018 and would respectfully request that the Town of Sundre reconsider this decision,” states a portion of the letter, which was read to council during the Dec. 17 meeting by Linda Nelson, chief administrative officer, who sought direction.
“It is (the county) council’s opinion that due to the recent change in contractor and noticeable improvement to the service level at the Sundre Recycling Centre, that a further trial period be established by the town to identify if previous issues have now been rectified.”
The letter concluded by stating that “ultimately, the recycling centre is the responsibility of the town, Mountain View County is open to any extended time period that would help to better identify the future viability of the Sundre Recycling Centre.”
However, town council was largely set on its prior decision to close down the site, citing concerns that regardless of what company was hauling out material, problems with contamination would persist at an unsupervised facility, leading to the product going to landfill and still overall defeating the purpose of recycling.
“I think our direction was pretty clear in October that we wanted to close it,” said Coun. Todd Dalke, who wondered how a new contractor changed how people use the site.
Operations manager Jim Hall said the change in contractors had caused some confusion. Although the facility still has the same bins and accepts the same materials, far fewer people seem to have been using the site since a new sign was installed, he told council.
“I check that facility every morning at 6:30, 7 o’clock on my way to work. It’s fairly clean, but it’s not overused. I believe that people are just doing something different now, whether it’s throwing it in the ditches, burning it, or taking it to the transfer site,” he said.
“We need a lot more money to operate a recycling centre than what we’re currently getting,” he added.
Also discussed was the municipality’s blue bin recycling program, which has seen a high rate of participation from residents.
Coun. Cheri Funke said Sundre residents are prepared for the closure, and are supplied with curbside recycling.
“I would support this facility, but I would just suggest if Mountain View County wants it, they can put it on their own land,” said Funke.
Dalke commended those users who have made a more concerted effort to clean up their recyclables, but said that the cleaner site was more likely the result of wintertime. The councillor said he still supported the original decision to close down Sundre’s recycling centre.
Even if the site is cleaner, there remains the distinct possibility that waste materials will continue to cause problems, said Mayor Terry Leslie.
“They haven’t been recyclable products, they’ve been landfill,” said Leslie, referring to the problem of contaminant materials ending up mixed in with recyclables.
From a personal perspective, the mayor said he preferred having the waste commission’s monitored transfer site handle recycling and that Sundre’s council had already arrived at a decision.
“I can’t support reopening and continuing to do this, because I would expect that as an unmanned facility, we would see the return to the same abusive behaviour by a minority of people. And, as we’ve indicated, we already have a curbside recycling program.”
However, the only way for Sundre residents to dispose of no-deposit recyclable glass products, which cannot go in the blue bins, will now be to go to the Mountain View Regional Waste Management Commission’s transfer station immediately east of town, south of Highway 27 on the east side of Rge. Rd. 51, which is open only Fridays and Saturdays from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m.
Coun. Richard Warnock said council should respond positively, and that if their county counterparts remain set on providing such a facility that he agreed with Funke’s suggestion.
“They’ve got an industrial park right on the west side of Sundre. Find a location out there, move it there and man it themselves, and then our staff don’t have to deal with it, we don’t have to go out there and clean it up,” said Warnock.
Additionally, the mayor pointed out that a majority of the people served by the recycling centre are not Sundre residents, but that town staff are responsible to look after the site.
“To their credit, Mountain View County has certainly offered to pay for that service. But the issue is that whole system is flawed. If it’s not manned, and then there is an abusive situation, then all of the good work that all of those folks have done to recycle, it becomes landfill,” said Leslie.
Council passed a motion by Funke directing administration to draft a letter in response to Mountain View County reaffirming the Town of Sundre council’s decision to close the recycling centre on Dec. 31 and to outline the reasons why.
