I consider myself a pretty lucky person. I somehow managed to land my dream job right out of school, in which I perform contract work (exclusively at the moment) for the regional district.
I have worked in the industry for about three years. My most recent project is a waste composition study, which is essentially a big audit of what is going into the region's landfills. Now maybe I am a little more excited about waste than the average person, but how cool is that???!!!
Today I had a guided tour of Mission Flats landfill. It was really amazing. Our first stop was the recycling area. My favourite is the scrap metal pile - there is always some amazing find, today was a set of four vintage chairs.
An old hippie acquaintance of mine, Tony, is always going on about how they closed the Drop and Shop at the landfill, and how he thinks is is absolutely ridiculous that the "City" won't let anyone take stuff away from the landfill. He thinks that a 'no scavenging' policy is totally counter to their waste reduction goals, and to be honest, he has a point. It's such a shame that the world has come to the point where everything has to be so tightly regulated, because if it's not, someone is going to do something stupid, and sue whoever let it happen.
I could never work at a landfill, it would make me sick watching perfectly good or fixable or reusable stuff get tossed into the bin, later to be buried.
After visiting the residential area, we headed up towards the active face, an area of the landfill that only commercial waste haulers get to see. Along the way we passed the asphalt and concrete recycling areas, massive piles that get crushed and used in various operations like road bedding. Greg explained to me that he wanted to start collecting toilets and other ceramic objects to crush. He said that somewhere in California they use the crushed toilets as pathways in parks - as most toilets are white, the paths are highly visible at night - how ingenious!
The active face of the landfill was surprisingly not as bad as I thought it would be. There was a small area where a huge tractor like thing with big spiky metal wheels looking like something that would really kick ass at a monster truck rally was driving over the day's garbage. Greg told me that he used to drive one of those tractors. Back and forth all day long, compacting the waste. The City trucks compact garbage as they collect it, but Greg says that that machine will compact even that garbage by a factor of six.
After discussing the study with the landfill operator manager for a while, we headed back the way we came and back to the city. On the way I asked Greg if the City was considering wood waste recycling. He told me that they used to recycle wood waste, but that someone up the ladder put a stop to it because it was claimed to cause too much damage to the chipper. Greg didn't agree with it, he said that those chippers could handle anything and that we only wished they would give him the go ahead to start wood waste recycling again.
The more time I spent with Greg, the more I started to like him. He was my kind of person, waste diversion specialist, with ideas a lot bigger impact than my little zero-waste challenge. But I understand how the City operates - they take their time and do it right. So it will take time, but I know we will get there Kamloops.
What do think will be next on the list of diversion options for the City? What would you like to see being recycled in your community?
0 comments:
Post a Comment