The Town of Erin is hoping to enhance recycling in public places by installing new recycling bins in the urban areas.
President of the Canadian Beverage Association Jim Goetz presented to council at a special session on April 24.
He said CBA performed a week long waste audit in the fall to get an idea about when and where recycling was happening in the Village of Erin’s public spaces.
“Beverage recycling is actually … moderate to good in certain locations,” he said.
Goetz noted that one of the largest issues Erin is facing is contamination.
“Contamination was very high. That means that garbage is being thrown into recycling infrastructure, and that has a detrimental effect to the material that comes out the other side,” he said.
Through the audit, Goetz recommended the town purchase 44 new recycling bins and 43 dual waste/recycling bins for public spaces such as Centre 2000, The Town of Erin municipal office, McMillan Park and along Main Street.
The 44 recycling bins are expected to cost $7,933 and the 43 dual stream bins are expected to cost $41,311.
The total cost of the project, including installation, project management and audits is approximately $106,000. The Town of Erin has put $36,000 of the Nestle Waters Canada voluntary levy toward the project and CBA has offered to finance the remainder.
Roads superintendent Greg Delfosse said the town’s bin are in poor condition and were set to be replaced.
“Speaking with our contractor, the stream is not managed very well right now, a lot of the recycling is contaminated and goes to garbage,” he said.
The bins are expected to be installed by the end of May.
Councillor Matt Sammut said he was worried about visual appeal of the bins. He said he wanted Erin to be “as cute, quaint, maybe tourism town” as communities such as Elora and Niagara-on-the-Lake.
“I looked at your pictures, and they are the classic blue cans. To be honest, I don’t like the look of them, but they stand out, so they are effective, but they don’t look that great,” he said asking if the “classic blue cans” were more effective in promoting recycling.
“We can share some data with you on the fact that you do have to make those visual differences,” said Goetz .
“Other towns that just put historic looking wooden box of some variety … the results are quite dramatic as far as the difference. Your contamination goes even further up and things get mixed quite a bit.”
Councillor John Brennan asked how many times the bins were emptied and if that service would need to be increased.
Delfosse said the Main Street bins are emptied weekly, adding the department would look out if that needed to be changed.
Park and recreation officer Jamie Adams said Centre 2000 currently has ban garbage bins, but not many recycling bins. Currently, during peak times bins are changed every hour. In public parks, bin are changed weekly. If there are events, they are changed more frequently.
Councillor Jeff Duncan said a lot of the current facilities are in need of a revamp “so I think the timing is good.”
