A few weeks ago, SCRD Elphinstone director Donna McMahon organized a tour of the Gibsons Recycling Depot. A hot button topic in our community for years, recycling of waste is critically important for the entire Coast as our only landfill is quickly reaching the end of its life. When the amazing Buddy Boyd and Barb Hetherington sold the business in March 2018, they left it in good hands. Tyler Nygaard lived in Rivers Inlet until age 13 when he moved here, and his wife Amanda was born and raised on the Coast.
They are on a steep learning curve, continuing to build on what Buddy and Barb began, including the practice of densification. In addition to owning one of the few Styrofoam densifyers (a Buddy and Barb legacy), they are working to densify many other products, which significantly reduces truck traffic and therefore emissions. For example, a semi truck can hold 68 megabags. But with compacting, 14 totes of rigid plastic/tin can be compressed into one, and 40 megabags of film plastic compressed into one. For the aforementioned Styrofoam, 77 megabags can be compressed into one – weighing 693 pounds!
Amanda says, “All the densification we do at the depot is with our two balers and the Styrofoam densifying machine. All the recycle products are shipped to Vancouver and almost all are processed in B.C. The plastics go to Merlin Plastics and are melted down and made into small pellets and then are marketed on the international market.”
The range of items that the Gibsons Recycling Depot can handle is remarkable – light bulbs, ewaste, thermostats, batteries, etc. For some there is a fee; think of it as payment for our wasteful ways! Most of the revenue to the depot, which employs five full-time and nine part-time staff, comes from Recycle BC, through the SCRD. It’s open seven days a week and about 300 cars drop off household recycling every day. The Nygaards thank everyone who takes the time to recycle.
We discussed the problem of contamination; everything needs to be cleaned before being recycled. At my house, items to be recycled that can’t go through the dishwasher are rinsed and hung dry before they go into various boxes in the recycling cupboard. Most people are responsible about cleaning their recyclables, but it only takes one dirty item to contaminate the lot! Canada’s recycling debacle has been in the news lately, and although B.C. is better than many provinces, there’s room for improvement.
Tyler and Amanda have charts showing diversion rates from the Sechelt landfill by category. In total, 2,259,322 pounds (1,027 tons) of waste were diverted from the landfill in 2018. We need to think of waste as a resource and develop creative ways of reusing it. In the meantime, refuse, reduce, reuse, recycle. And thank the hard working folks at Gibsons Recycling Depot for the important job they are doing!
Note that the first Elphinstone Community Association meeting of the new season will be at Frank West Hall; 7 p.m. on Wednesday, Sept. 11. Come out, spend time with your neighbours and find out the latest from Director Donna. If you have news to share, drop me a line at: elphin@coastreporter.net
