In upcoming budget discussions, council will debate spending $25,000 in 2015 to move the recycling facility to a new location, which has not yet been determined.
The facility is currently located on Centre Street South, near the Sundre Museum, but town officials would like to move it off of Mountain View County-owned land, and add security fencing, surveillance and access control equipment.
Options town officials are looking at include a publicly-owned vacant gravel lot at the town hall or the old public works shop location, which is also publicly owned.
Other possibilities include vacant land at the publicly-owned north end sewage lagoon, as well as other sites that may be available for sale or lease in the west industrial area.
Officials say $11,200 would be spent from solid waste reserves for the recycle facility, and $13,800 would be spent from solid waste unnamed reserves.
“This is a simple system but is routinely abused by people leaving unrecyclable garbage, electronics, furniture and litter,” town officials reported to council.
“The operations department spends two to three hours per week cleaning up this area and hauling garbage to the transfer site or other town bins.”
According to the town's community peace officer, Kevin Heerema, the town's waste bylaw states: “that no recyclable materials, or other materials are deposited on top of, beside, or near recycling collection containers.”
Anyone who witnesses someone placing materials in or around the recycling centre is asked to contact Heerema at 403-638-4707.
“Please be able to provide the date, time, a vehicle plate number if possible, and what materials or items were left behind,” said Heerema.
“Offenders may be ticketed and/or held responsible for any cleanup costs.”
