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‘On solid ground: Recycling Centre hopes city will consider earth-friendly bylaws

Flin Flon area residents reduced their garbage footprint last year, but the head of the recycling program believes better results are possible – with help from civic lawmakers. The Flin Flon Recycling Centre accepted 460.

Flin Flon area residents reduced their garbage footprint last year, but the head of the recycling program believes better results are possible – with help from civic lawmakers.

The Flin Flon Recycling Centre accepted 460.6 tonnes of material in 2015, up 11 per cent from 2014 for one of its most successful years to date.

“The recycling program is on solid ground and growing,” wrote centre administrator Deb Odegaard in a report presented at the Thursday, April 14 annual meeting of the Flin Flon and District Environment Council, which oversees the centre.

Odegaard said she is pleased that recycling rates are rising, but she renewed calls for city council to ban cardboard at the landfill, modify dumpster rates and implement a program whereby residents buy tags for garbage bags in order to have them picked up.

Such steps are necessary to realize “significant increases in recycling,” she wrote.

The centre is still hoping to generate added revenue from Denare Beach and outlying cottage residents, as efforts to obtain grants from those areas failed in 2015.

As such, residents in those areas were asked to make individual financial contributions to the centre. Odegaard said Denare Beach residents gave $207 and cottagers provided $429.

The City of Flin Flon and Town of Creighton continued to provide grants worth $11.40 for every resident of each community, she noted.

Odegaard had also hoped to see more usage of the red-bag residential pick-up program in Flin Flon, but she said some lower-income residents have indicated they cannot afford the bags.

It is also convenient for many residents to simply drop off their recyclables at the Recycling Centre or its collection trailer near the former Extra Foods building, she said.

Of the 460.6 tonnes of material brought into the centre last year, nearly half was corrugated cardboard. Total tonnage was the third highest of any year since the recycling program debuted in 1992.

Highlights

Other highlights from the Flin Flon and District Environment Council’s annual meeting, held at Flin Flon City Hall:

• The council presented four awards: Community Support Award to Gardewine, Community Champion Award to Judy Pettersen, 10-year employee service award to Randy Whitmore and a board member award to Angela Simpson.

• Five board members whose terms expired were all re-elected: chairman La Verne Hinzman, secretary Jan Modler, treasurer Bob Lyons, and directors Greg East and Annette Banach.

• Odegaard commended her workers. As of Dec. 31, 2015, the staff consisted of Odegaard, Wayne Freund, Randy Whitmore, Chris Dion, Earl Crouse, Kelly Potkonjak, David Didyk, Michael Anderson, Rick Reid and Dan Boily. Employees work at either the Recycling Centre or the landfill, where the centre has a contract to provide management services for the City of Flin Flon.

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