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Welcome to Port Alberni's Garbage |
In this section the Alberni Environmental Coalition attempts to give the public a better grasp of how and why to dispose of its trash in a way that is at least not entirely wasteful.
| Information | Images |
| The Trash Tour Gallery
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| Recycling Bins and the Super Site | |
| Sunbird Disposal & Recycling | |
| The Bottle Depot | |
| The Tire Recycling Building | |
| Local Recycling Links |
The area where Port Alberni's landfill now sits was once the location of a large, empty hollow. A creek ran through the area. Now the vacant hole has been filled and the creek is gone. Toxic leachate is squeezed out of the landfill as new waste is piled on top of the already untold tonnes of garbage in the dump.
In Guelph, Ontario, a wet bag-dry bag recycling program allows well over 80% of that city's trash to be salvaged for recycling. And in Detroit, composting programs convert the public's organic waste into profitable turf farms. Cities such as these are responsible in their awareness and treatment of the environment. Ecosystems are sensitive; apathy towards our garbage heaps is unacceptable.
Currently there are changes occurring in the way Port Alberni deals with its waste. A major objective is to stop all recyclables from being tipped into the landfill. As it stands, Port Alberni is the only town on Vancouver Island south of Comox that does not ban the dumping of recyclable materials into landfill. There is no reason we should be irresponsible with our trash when it is common knowledge that constructive alternatives exist.
The Recycling Bins and the Super Site
The recycling bins found around various businesses in Port Alberni are soon to be removed and collectively replaced with one centralized collection 'super site'. This site will be located on 4th Avenue directly across the street from The Bottle Depot, and will be administered by Sunbird Disposal & Recycling. The site will be open from 10am - 6pm, seven days a week, and will have separate bins for sorting a greater diversity of materials than is currently available.
For instance, bins for separating glass by colour will be arranged; in the past all sites around town provided only a single bin for glass. Sorting by colour, however, makes it possible to sell glass to markets which cannot use glass if it is unsorted. The super site will capitalize on broader recycling markets in this way. At the super site, compost will be the only material with a user fee. This will be to cover the cost of trucking to the turf site which Sunbird Disposal & Recycling plans to implement in the very near future.
Located at 5043 Johnston Road (phone 724-0987), Sunbird Disposal & Recycling offers a curbside pick-up service at $7.44/month for residences and $16.95/month for businesses. Each Friday, Sunbird goes around to their clients and collects recyclables.
Originally a garbage disposal business, Sunbird is transforming more and more into a recycling company. They plan to begin a fully in-house recycling system as soon as they get a big enough building. This means that they will be able to store a greater range a materials and keep them ready for when markets are appropriate. As soon as Sunbird goes in-house, a full-range recycling service will become the norm in Port Alberni. Sunbird already enjoys established relationships with International Paper Industries and Budget Steel. And once Sunbird is prepared, Belkin in Vancouver has stated that it will accept all plastics, grades 1-9.
Combined with their control of the super site, this means that Sunbird will soon help to virtually stop all recyclable materials from entering the Port Alberni landfill. Sunbird intends to give Port Alberni full glass recycling capacity as well, which will make us the only place on the island besides Victoria with this service. In addition to all of this, Sunbird also plans to educate the public both by campaigning door-to-door as well as by visiting elementary schools.
Located at 3533 4th Avenue (phone 724-5811), The Bottle Depot accepts any recyclables which you pay a deposit on, in addition to other miscellaneous materials which they can make a profit from (such as car batteries). It is open Monday through Saturday from 10:30am - 5:00pm.
The old tire recycling building, located beside the landfill, was once the production site for recycling used tires into tire pellet. Because the process required shipping tire shreds to Vancouver and then delivering them back to Port Alberni for use, however, the practice was financially unsustainable and soon fell apart.
The company Target took over, promising to clean up the mess. By connecting with Pacifica Papers (who in the meantime had obtained a Waste Management Permit), the tire recycling plant became a tire-shredding plant, where tires would be shredded and then sent to the mill to be disposed of by burning. Burning tires generates energy for Pacifica, but it also releases miniscule toxic particulate matter. When tire are burned, tiny hydrocarbons remain left over. The unburned hydrocarbons are so small that they pass through the filters of the human nasal passage when breathed. The particulates bond with oxygen and enter the blood stream, introducing such poisons as mercury into the casual breather's body. Tire burning is not recycling; this is a practice which is unethical and which must be condemned by the public.
Sunbird Disposal & Recycling is interested in obtaining the spacious venue of the former tire building to facilitate its in-house recycling ambitions. The company is offering to help clean up the currently messy site if the Regional District grants them control of the tire building. A wall of enormous tires surrounds the tire recycling site. If given the tire building, Sunbird Disposal & Recycling would deposit compost along the wall and move it in a circuit around the site to aerate it, with the end product being a turf field.
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Click on a photo below to view a specific thumbnail gallery with information. |
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Trash and Port Alberni's Landfill
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Recycling Bins and the Super Site
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The Tire Recycling Building: Past and Future
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International Paper Industries, Nanaimo
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