SUNDRE – The municipality has officially joined its regional counterparts and fellow members of the Mountain View Regional Waste Management Commission in expressing support to close recycling centres at the transfer stations and landfill.
However, Town of Sundre Mayor Richard Warnock emphasized that the proposed plan to potentially close the recycling centres is not yet irreversibly inscribed into stone.
“First off, it doesn’t mean it’s going to happen,” he said. “It just means that the board for Mountain View Regional Waste Commission will take a look at all the options.”
Warnock added during a Jan. 25 phone interview with the Albertan that the commission’s transfer stations – including the one nearest to Sundre located immediately east of town south of Highway 27 on Range Road 51 – will remain open for people who for example need to dispose of either hazardous household waste such as batteries and old fridges or even excess refuse.
“That’s not up for discussion,” he said in response to being asked to confirm whether the transfer station would remain open.
But it is possible the service for recycling items from glass and cardboard to tin cans and plastic might cease, he said.
Amid low market uptake, those materials have in recent years tended to accumulate into large stockpiles, and in the absence of buyers often ends up going to the landfill, he said.
“It is too bad,” he said. “We don’t want people to quit recycling. We’re hoping that somewhere in the future, this opens back up and there is a buyer for it, or a way to recondition it.”
Yet in the short-term, the mayor said Sundre council agreed with the commission’s option to close the recycling centres for the time being “because of the cost to our residents for something that’s going to landfill anyway . . . we support closing them if there’s no buyer.”
“I don’t want our public to think that we’re stopping to support recycling,” he said. “We just don’t want our ratepayers to pay a premium for something that’s not happening.”
Additionally, he said the municipality’s waste collection program will not be impacted regardless of what direction the commission takes and residents will still be able to use their blue bins.
“It doesn’t affect Sundre to any great degree, because it has nothing to do with our bins that we have in town; it has to do with the recycling that’s at the transfer stations.”
The waste commission had previously issued a survey presenting three alternative options for members to consider: maintain current service levels; reduce services levels to transfer station and landfill only; or close all recycling collection sites.
The commission “wanted official support, not just verbal support,” said Warnock, adding the survey was completed locally and submitted on Jan. 25.
Following an in-camera discussion during the regular Jan. 23 meeting, council carried a motion expressing support for the commission’s option to close down its recycling sites.
Linda Nelson, Sundre’s chief administrative officer, also cited “weak markets for processed materials, the high costs to the residents, and the inability to ensure that the products are in fact recycled” as the primary reasons behind the proposal to possibly close the recycling centres.
