A proposal to make recycling more accessible is in the hands of city council.
The Flin Flon Recycling Centre is asking council to consider buying two recycling drop-off trailers for the community.
“We would like them placed in convenient locations (in) the community,” wrote centre administrator Deb Odegaard in a recent letter to council.
The metal trailers she has in mind – 24 feet long and seven feet wide – are manufactured in The Pas and sell for $8,750 each, before taxes.
Purchasing two trailers would cost nearly $20,000, though a discount of $500 is available if other trailers are being manufactured at the same time.
Locations
Odegaard suggested one trailer be placed in the Walmart area; the other in the downtown area.
Her staff would be responsible for bringing the trailers to the Recycling Centre for unloading.
The trailers would help reduce the large volume of material being dropped off at the centre on weekends, Odegaard wrote.
The centre now has staff working a few hours on Saturdays and Sundays to help keep up with the demand.
Council referred the request to the Finance Committee for further discussion.
While the centre is asking for an investment in recycling, it is not seeking an increase in municipal support for its day-to-day operations.
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Instead, it will ask the city for the same funding in 2014 as it received this year – $11.40 per person, or a little over $60,000.
“We have changed our processing at the centre as many other small recycling programs have in the province of Manitoba,” Odegaard wrote. “We are no longer sorting materials here but are sending (it) out for sorting. This has allowed us to reduce the number of staff we have, which makes our operation more economically viable.”
She said this change means recyclables are being processed and shipped out “considerably faster.”
Odegaard, a pioneer of community recycling, took over as centre administrator earlier this year following the retirement of Doreen Murray.
Odegaard, who helped launch community recycling in 1992, had briefly served as administrator of the program in 1996.
