To squish or not to squish……That is the question that we’ve been hearing from some of our friendly recyclers who want to help us out and here is an answer. If you want to take the time to help in our recycling efforts, you can squish the milk and soup cartons. No squishing of “refundables” or glass of course. We thank you for your participation.
The negotiations with CUPE 556 and HIRRA have been completed and an agreement has been ratified. We would like to thank everyone at the negotiating table, who spend many hours hammering out this first “collective agreement” between HIRRA and the depot staff. Thank you to the HIRRA admin and bookkeeping staff for all the extra hours that were required to bring the agreement to a close. And thank you to the HIRRA executive, the recycling committee, and the membership who voted at the last HIRRA meeting.
We are spending more time these days removing air (baling) from the materials we ship off island. With our newly adopted compaction procedure we “save” approximately one shipping containers every fourth shipment. That is 15 less trips annually. Approximately. Reducing our carbon footprint considerably. As we are baling all these extra containers it is essential that they are clean and empty when you bring them to us to be recycled.
We would like to remind everyone to make sure that all your recycling is free from any contaminants. Last month we received a load of recycling that contained rat feces. A very unpleasant surprise for our staff first thing in the morning.
We can still use more “free store” volunteers during these slow season months. If you have any time to spare and would like to give some your time to the “free store” the volunteers would love to see you. Even a couple of hours a week can be of great assistance.
Thank you to all those who took part in our Facebook poll and/or survey monkey survey. As you might be guessing we are researching the Bin Guide position and your input was very helpful. We need to maximise the recycling at the depot and assure that no “recyclables” are land filled. Often, we find these “recyclables” in the waste bins that are headed to the landfill. A Bin Guide could assist patrons and advise on what should not be send to landfill. A bin guide could also assure that there is a proof of payment as we have been noticing customers forget to stop at the office to pay for their waste. Perhaps they do not even know that there is a charge and a Bin Guide could inform those users. Taking payments would make time available for the manager to manage. So’ we are discussing the idea of implementing such a Bin Guide in 2021 and would be welcoming any thoughts and comments.
We thank you all again for helping us to forge the way to Zero Waste.
…. See you up on depot hill
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