20 - Friday, September 6, 1991 — North Shore News

Mixed paper recycling still poses a problem

THERE’S GOOD news and bad news on the topic of

paper recycling.

The good news is that The Bay and the North Shore Recycling Program are holding a mixed paper drop-off tonight, tomorrow and Sunday.

The bad news is that this will probably be the only chance North Shore residents will have to recycle their paper locally for the next little while.

First, the Bay event. All you readers who have been stockpiling mixed paper will be able to bring it down to the Bay’s Garden Cen- tre, located out the back entrance of the Park Royal Bay store.

Welcome are pressed board (i.e. shee and cereal boxes), office paper of al! colors, magazines, glossy paper and junk mail. If you have a quantity of computer paper, we ask you to keep it sepa- tate from your mixed paper so it can be recycled into a_ higher grade product.

Not welcome are corrugated cardboard, which can be taken to IPI at Riverside and Spicer or the North Shore Transfer Station next door to IPI, newspapers (put those in your blue bag), telephone books, tissue paper or paper towels. Hours of the event are £ p.m. to 9 p.m. today (Friday), 9:30 a.m. to 5:30 p.m. Saturday, and noon to 5 p.m. on Sunday.

The Lynn Canyor Ecology Centre will have an information booth there — their staff are an excellent resource for nature pro- jects, you back-to-schoolers — and at 1 p.m. on Saturday and Sunday they will lead a nature walk on the banks of the Capilano River.

The North Shore Recycling Program Green Team volunteers will be there helping to facilitate the paper flow and having par- ticipants fill out free raffle tickets to win a Garden Box composter.

And The Bay staff will be han- ding out store discount coupons and selling hot dogs and drinks.

The event comes at a particular- ly good time, as Vancouver’s largest paper recycler, Paperboard Industries, has recently stopped

HOURS: Mon-Sat 9-5:30 Sunday 12-5

—

99 DAY NO INTEREST PLAN OF TERMS O AC.

Peggy Trendell-Whittaker

te

ECOINFO

accepting mixed paper from the public.

The market is limited for the end products of low-grade mixed paper, and the market that does exist is currently glutted. Paper- board's number, for readers who want more details, is 875-1635.

Paper-Go-Round, the recycled paper product store that had been accepting office paper at its 9 Lonsdale location. is no longer able to take customers’ paper.

And the North Shore Recycling Program is exploring ways cf ad- ding mixed paper to our local recycling system, but the last quote received from contractor IPI indicates that the per-capita cost of recycling would double if mixed paper was added to the blue boxes.

While the recycling program wants to establish a staffed depot that would accept non-blue box recyclables such as _ various plastics, corrugated cardboard and mixed paper, the location is yet to be determined; stable markets have to be found, and many other factors sorted out.

So in the meantime, there’s not much you can do except utilize your office recycling program, if you’ve got one in place (call the provincial recycling hotline at

732-9253 if you need info on starting one) and reduce your consumption as much as possible. Here are some tps that will help keep the paper in your trash to a minimum: © While ‘‘No junk mail’’ signs on your mailbox won't influence most postal workers, as Canada Post is contractually obliged to deliver to all households, it should be heeded by flyer distributors hired privately to blanket the neighborhood with advertise- ments. If you haven't already, take 10 minutes to learn the buttons on your office photocopict. Once you learn how, it’s easy to doubte-side your copies, or copy onto sheets that were used for some other purpose but have one blank side. At this point, 1 am_ ethically obliged to mention that | am in the North Shore News bad books because apparently (so they claim) put some used paper in the feeder bin that was kind of al- ready paper clipped together, resulting in the machine being jammed, resulting in another employee wrenching its internal levers in a fit of pique, resulting in a photocopier service person using valuable fossil fuels to come to our office and fix our battered machine. So beware. ¢ Re-use vour old envelopes for outgoing mail. Paper-Go-Round sells labels you can use to cover the old address, or you can fash- ion your own. * Make your own memo pads out of scrap paper. ¢ Proofread reports and memos carefully on the computer before printing them. e When possible, circulate one memo throughout your depart- ment, cr post it on the bulletin board, rather than make copies for every staff person. Obviously, newspapers are major user of pulp and certainly add to the waste stream.

I will be dealing with the topic of recycled newsprint in general and other concerns that are specific to the News in a future column.

CCAS

i

VOLUNTEERS NEEDED |

YOU CAN MAKE A DIFFERENCE

°¢ Community-based program promoting the 3Rs ts looking for volunteer speakers

© Excellent training and support provided

¢ For further inforrnaiion, please call 669-6298

THE SAGE FOUNDATION

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