3 - Friday, June 8, 1990 - North Shore News Apartments proving a challenge for recycling project | THE $5.5 MILLION North Shore recycling program, set to be fully operational by September, will be the first of its kind to service multi-family dwellings west of Toron- NEWS photo Neil Lucente NORTH SHORE Recycling Program coordinaor Allen Lynet displays acute recycling sense by filling a bin to the brim with bottles. The aew multi-materiai recycling program is expected to be fully operational by September. to. But arranging the pickup of recyclable goods from apartment buildings, townhouses and con- dominiums is proving an ex- tremely complex logistical under- taking. Said Allen Lynch, North Shore Recycling Program coordinator, “There are roughly 23,000 multi-family units on the North Shore. It’s very difficult to in- tegrate multi family into the pro- gram because every building is different. Some areas are so huge, like Woodcroft, you're looking at about 80 different (45 to 90-gallon) wheeled containers there.”” Subject to the size and layout of each multi-family site, each building may either receive a single blue box per unit or several of the larger wheeled containers. The containers may be stored in a common area and can receive newspapers, glass bottles and jars, beverage and food cans, plastic pop bottles and plastic milk jugs. Recycled goods will be picked up weekly by International Paper Industries Ltd. (IPI), the suc- cessful private bidder for the new North Shore multi-material recycling progam. Lynch is working closely with the Greater Vancouver Regional District to turn the multi-family component of the local recycling initiative into a pilot prgram for the region. Said Lynch, ‘‘It may sound sil- ly but what I want here is for this to be held up and looked at as a shining example of how you can do it.” In July, all multi-family units across the North Shore will be By MICHA I. BECKER approached to arrange for the receipt of containers. But said Lynch, ‘‘Lack of standard building size is the problem. You have to go build- ing to building to sit down with the managers and decide on the. variables. Every one is different. That’s always been the problem with multi-family, and a lot of communities have just said forget it.”” North Shore municipalities. The company has a North Vancouver plaat and will be dedicating nine compartmentalized trucks to the weekly task of collecting goods from up to 50,000 boxes and containers. While program organizers don’t anticipate a 100 per cent participation rate, Lynch and IPI are estimating the first year of the program will see the collec- tion of 4,650 tonnes of newspa- per, 1,900 tonnes of glass, 500 tonnes of metal and 250 tonnes of plastic. IPI has guaranteed the municipalities will receive $28,833 per month for recyclable materials collected during the EE ‘Lack of standard building size is the problem ... a lot of communities have just said forget it.’’ — recycling coordinator Allen Lynch But if all goes according to plan, Lynch anticipates North Vancouver District multi-family dwellings will receive containers during the first two weeks of August. West Vancouver will take delivery of multi-family con- “tainers during the third week of August and North Vancouver Ci- ty will receive multi-family con- tainers during the last two weeks of August. Meanwhile, curbside blue box service for single-family homes will be phased in across the North Shore throughout September. Recyclable goods will be pick- ed up by IPI on the same day that garbage is collected. IPI, was awarded the five-year recycling program contract earlier this year by the three first year of the program. Recent tax notices sent out to North Shore residents include a new tax levy to help pay for the recycling program. The per-household recycling services levy for North Van- couver City residents is $26.83. In West Vancouver, the recycl- ing levy was set in November, well before the IPI contract details were determined. West Vancouver residents were billed $18 per household for the period July 1 to Dec. 31, 1990. Becaus: the recycling program will not start until later this summer, money collected by the municipality and not spent will be carried over to reduce next year’s cost. North Vancouver District tax- payers pay about $16 for recycl- ing service in 1990. W. Shore curbside pickup just first step in GVRD plan WHILE THE new North Shore-wide blue box recycling program is being lauded as a good green move by most, the conservation effort is generally considered an early first step towards a more resource recovery and reuse. The blue box program is among a number of waste management initiatives being considered by the Greater Van- couver Regional District (GVRD), and steps have already been taken to establish a regional processing and marketing service for all recycled materials col- lected in GVRD municipalities. Proposals for the operation of such a service are currently being accepted by the GVRD. The return date for the contract is June 14, ‘“*The idea would be that this facility would receive the curb- side recyclables from the municipalities, such as the North Shore, and they would process, clean up and package the materi- als for market,’? said GVRD recycling director Toivo Allas. The district has also asked for proposals to establish a central- ized composting service. On the residential side of the waste stream, garden and kitchen waste account for approximately 30 per cent of waste. Proposals for the composting service are due July Both programs would start by collecting at a residential level and could expand to handle comprehensive program of By MICHAEL BECKER News Reporter commercially-generated recyclables. Allas says the recycled- materials processing plant could be operational by the first quarter of 199], with the com- posting facility opening during the second half of 1991. According to Allas, an effi- cient curbside recycling program removes about !5 per cent of ma- terials from the waste stream. “To keep it in its simplest form you can look at it this way,’’ he said. ‘‘The GVRD is responsible for disposing of ap- proximately 1.2 million tonnes of waste per annum. It’s a huge quantity. One million tonnes would fill B.C. Place to the top of the dome. Of that, 50 per cent is residential and the other half is commerce and industry.”’ Added Allas, ‘A well-run curbside program will reduce the residential waste stream by 30 per cent. But I always talk about the total waste stream. In actual fact it reduces the total waste stream by 15 per cent when you factor in (non-recycled) commercial waste."” North Vancouver District Lautens launched today SOCIAL HORTICULTURISTS and other News readers are invited today to join columnist Trevor Lautens in a tour through his Garden of Biases (See page 4). The column, exclusive to the News, will appear every month in the newspaper and’ will feature the singular Lautens views that have made him one of the most in- teresting and controversial colum- nists in B.C. Lautens, a columnist with the Vancouver Sun, first began writing for daily newspapers in the mid- 1940s at the tender age of 11. BLUE BOX PROGRAM TO REDUCE WASTE BY 10-12% director of engineering John Bremner says the North Shore generated approximately 110,000 tonnes of waste last year. The district contributed about 40 per cent of that total. Most of the waste is in- cinerated in Burnaby. But some is turned into industrial fuel pellets by Wastech Services, which operates the Riverside Drive waste transfer station in North Vancouver District. The transfer station processes waste collected from the three North Shore municipalities. Said Bremner, ‘'The blue box program is going to remove [0 to 12 per cent out of the waste stream. In terms of net gains it’s not going to be that high. But it’s the next step to take.” But Edward Moore, president of Community Re-psychling, has some fundamental concerns with the way some materials collected for recycling are actually recycl- ed. For example glass, which must be cleaned and separated by col- or, ends up being crushed and Automotives............25 Classified Ads..........30 Ecolmfo...........-.-.-18 remelted. Said Moore, ‘‘We find the process of breaking it and grin- ding it and shipping it an en- vironmental disaster. Reusing that glass for what it was made for is more logical. It’s a madness. They call it recycling when it’s really breaking the cy- cle. A glass bottle can be used again and again as you see in soft drinks and beer."’ But said Allas, ‘*Unfortunately at the GVRD and municipal level we're not in the legislative business. Certainly more glass should be included under the re- fund system.”” In the meantime, International Paper Industries Ltd. (IP{), the company contracted to operate the North Shore recycling pro- gram, will be collecting glass bot- tes and jars, newspapers, metal cans and plastic milk jugs and pop bottles. Once collected, glass is crushed and shipped to a bottle manufac- turer in Vernon, B.C. or to the U.S. market. Aluminum cans are returned to manufacturers. Tin cans are shipped to a de-tinning plant in Seattle. The remaining metal is sold offshore to Japan and other countries. Newspaper and plastic are sold overseas. Said Leung, ‘‘We always keep our doors open for markets. We've got to have a couple of outlets, instead of putting all of Editorial) Page.......... Home & Garden.........1 Trevor Lautens ......... Mailbox ............... Paul St. Pierre ......... our eggs in one basket. If that basket breaks, then the eggs are broken. So we don’t want that.” Leung says some _ recycling programs have had to shut down due to problems with market and a glut of materials. But she said, ‘‘So far we have been struggling along for two years. I think we will be okay. It is a problem, but we have a very strong marketing background. It’s an ace we have.”’ According to a report on recycling recent'y prepared for the Ministry of Environment: *approximately 2.4 million ton- nes of waste are generated every year in B.C.; *about seven per cent of B.C.’s waste is recovered; eabout 15 per cent of the total amount of waste paper generated is recovered; eabout 15 per cent of waste glass is recovered; eabout six per cent of metals are recovered; eabout half of all used alumi- num beverage containers are recycled; eabout five per cent of used tin cans are recycled; eless than two per cent of plastics are recovered, and almost no organic materials are recycled. Approximately 9,000 of a total 220,000 tonnes of materials, in- cluding oil, rubber, batteries, paints, thinners and household appliances, are recovered from the B.C. waste stream. WEATHER Friday, periods of rain. Saturday, mostly cloudy with chance of showers. Highs near 19°C. Second Ciass Registration Number 3885