Council awards contract for curbside recycling blue bin program
By Rob Vogt, Local Press Writer
A curbside recycling blue bin recycling program will be coming to Claresholm, with a start date tentatively set for October.
The decision came at the June 10 meeting of Claresholm town council after they reviewed a report from administration.
The report stated that in 2018 the town’s recycling program was under review as the contract with the prior recycling processes was coming to an end. During this time a recycling processor, Cascades Recovery, gave a presentation to the Facility and Infrastructure Planning Committee on their recycling processing and sorting facility and on the life cycle of their recycled products.
The committee was impressed with the presentation and facility. However, to utilize their sorting facility would require a significant change in town recycling operations. So, at that time, only a one-year contract was signed with Cascades to simply receive and process the town’s sorted and compacted recycling product.
On April 16, the committee directed administration to post a request for proposal for contracted curbside/commercial pick up of recycled products with as many products as possible to be picked up.
This was to enhance the town’s recycling program to take additional recycling products and simplify the recycling process with blue-bin curbside pickup, that is no more hand pickup, hand sorting, or resident bagging of materials, as well as no more commercial self-delivery of recyclable waste to the recycling centre.
The request for proposals closed on May 24. Administration reviewed four proposals, and graded them. Proposals were received from:
1) Condo Recycling Solutions;
2) Harvest Recycling;
3) Collective Waste Solutions Inc.;
4) Environmental 360 Solutions Ltd.
Of the proposals received the committee recommended Environmental 360 Solutions for various reasons including they are the most experienced, have the clearest and most comprehensive proposal and, though not the lowest price, are still very close to the others and the town also has the most confidence with them that recyclables will not be dumped in the landfill due to their continued utilization of Cascades Recovery as the recycling processor.
Administration said that looking at contracting out curbside pickup and the sorting of recycling has significant implications which have been reviewed and analyzed in detail both at the administration level as well as with the committee.
The committee has determined pursuing the contracting out of curbside recycling is in the best interest of the town and its residents.
The increased volume of recyclables being diverted from landfills is in the best interest of the planet and future generations.
Recyclable materials that would be collected include: cardboard; newspaper; mixed Paper; plastic such as beverage containers, cooking oil containers, etc.; plastic such as bleach or laundry detergent bottles, soap bottles, etc.; mixed plastics such as fruit plastic packaging, plastic packing, bubble wrap, food wraps, plastic furniture, plastic toys, etc.; aluminum; tin food cans; glass; and bagged shredded paper.
It was noted the proposal with Environmental 360 Solutions still has gaps in their proposal that need to be worked out. These include details of commercial pickup, bin leases, bin sizes, routes, educational materials and programs.
Consequently, the town is not in a position to sign a contract at this time. However, the current estimation is Environmental 360 Solutions would be able to commence their contract in early October.
“This is not going to happen over night,” said Mayor Doug MacPherson.
Council then awarded the curbside recycling blue bin program to Environmental 360 Solutions as per their proposal with remaining details of the contract to be negotiated by administration.