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Norfolk County Supervisor, Waste Management Merissa Bokla

Norfolk County’s recycling program experienced a form of spring cleaning this week.

Two representatives from the Kitchener-based AET Environmental Consulting Group attended the area’s material recovery facility on Grigg Drive in Simcoe to conduct a waste audit March 13-14.

The team spent two days sorting through material delivered to the 15,000-square-foot facility – which is operated by HGC Management in conjunction with Norfolk County – to gather information and relay patterns to management.

Maxwell Stead of based AET Environmental Consulting Group

“It gives us an idea of how our program is working and what areas we can improve upon, and certain materials we may need to target that shouldn’t be in recycling boxes,” said Merissa Bokla, Norfolk’s Supervisor of Waste Management.

This information gives Bokla and her team ideas for messaging that needs to be relayed to the public.

“When we do the Waste Guide for 2020, we can identify what the problem materials are,” Bokla added. “Maybe residents don’t realize some of the stuff they’re putting in shouldn’t be recycled so we use it as an education piece. Additionally, it also helps us to know that there may be certain things we need to let our collection contractor know to leave at the curb, or if it’s in the box, don’t collect it.”

Municipalities throughout the province often conduct waste audits. A number of outcomes are possible.

“Sometimes they’ll look at just the blue box, other times they’ll rip open garbage bags from the curbside and see if there’s recyclables in there,” Bokla points out. “It gives you an idea because otherwise, you don’t really know if your system is working and if the communication pieces that you’re putting out there are working.”

The Simcoe facility is home to 14 employees and utilizes what’s known as a “2-sort system.” One bay at the building is reserved for containers and the other one is for fibre.

Work is done at the Grigg Drive facility.

Staff hand-sort every piece of material, which totals about 5000 tons each year.

The group has seen everything from used propane tanks to frying pans pass through the doors.

“That’s called ‘wish-cycling’,” Bokla said. “Meaning that people put it in with the hopes that we’ll recycle it, but it ends up costing more money because it has to go through sorting and then ends up going to the landfill.”

Bokla advises residents to rinse items such as pasta sauce jars or ketchup containers to avoid residue and contaminates, and place all items inside the box individually.

“On windy days residents don’t want their blue box tipping over and litter going through the neighbourhood, but unfortunately with this facility, someone has to manually rip open any bags collected,” she explained.

“We don’t want bagged material because it takes a lot of time and labour to open those bags.”

Discarded glass at the facility awaits its fate.

 

Here are a few items that cannot be recycled:

  •    Children’s toys
  •    Ice cube trays
  •    Clothing hangers
  •    Frying Pans
  •    Garden hoses

 

For more information visit norfolkcounty.ca/living/garbage-and-recycling/recycling/.