If Neil Kevill had his way, so little garbage would be thrown into the Mountainview County landfill that it would last far beyond its 40-year life span. Rather than being thrown away, used refrigerators or baler twine could all be recycled.
“It is a natural resource that is wasted and if we are burying it in the landfill it is no good for anything,” said the chief administrative officer for the Mountain View Waste Management Commission, which serves 30,000 people in the county’s rural and urban communities surrounding Olds, Alta.
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“If we can separate it and turn it into useful products, then that is what we should be doing.”
Efforts to slow the steady traffic to the landfill led to the concept of rural recycling for this region north of Calgary.
Since April 2007, the commission has accepted silage bags, plastic twine, net wrap, bottles and other plastic farm products.
Farmers are paid $100 per 100 kilograms of material. They may accept the money or donate it to 4-H. There is a limit of $10,000 per farm.
The program received 21 tonnes of agricultural plastics last year and this year about 26.5 tonnes had arrived by November.
Kevill said 120 of the county’s 1,800 farms are participating.
“With any program it doesn’t start easy,” he said.
“It is an education process so they know what to do with it and they have to be prepared to start saving it through the winter.”
The products should be cleaned as much as possible. Baler twine should be free of straw and delivered in a clear plastic bag. Silage bags should be shaken out and rolled up.
All plastics from the farmyard or the home are welcome.
“Anything that is made out of plastic, we’ll accept it,” Kevill said. This includes bags, bottles and plastic food wrap. Styrofoam is not accepted.
The program kept 170 tonnes of mixed plastics out of the county’s landfill last year.
Plastic, metal and paper products are compressed into a 500 kg block that measures three feet by four feet by five feet for easy loading on a truck. Metals go to local salvage companies while plastics are shipped to a facility in Vancouver or to China.
The program also collects wire from the farm. It is shipped to Rainbow Salvage in Airdrie, Alta., where it is chopped and baled. Fifty-five tonnes were received last year. This year about half that has arrived.
The waste transfer station in Olds also accepts used oil, antifreeze, used propane bottles, batteries, paint, filters, used appliances and tires.
The commission provides three bins to rural residences who want them. As well, 11 collection depots are distributed around the county to accept recyclables. There is a county requisition of $6.50 per person to cover the cost.
The commission is also starting to work with the construction industry, which dumps considerable amounts of unwanted wood, drywall and asphalt shingles into landfills, even though those materials can be reused. Drywall can be crushed for fertilizer, wood can be chipped and asphalt can be reused.
Glass is ground up and used in cement or for roadwork sand.
“There is a little bit of a cost to it but if you weigh it against the cost of burying it in a landfill, it is far better,” Kevill said.
“The cost of building landfills these days is very high.”
He said 80 percent of the material that is thrown away could be recycled.
“We have got a long way to go. In this county we are hovering around the 20 percent mark. I have another 60 percent to pull out from somewhere.”
