Recycling facility heralded for its cost-saving potential

By Mallory Clarkson

It’s like an amusement park for recyclables. That’s how London’s environmental programs and solid waste director described southwestern Ontario’s newest materials recovery facility during its grand opening Friday morning (Oct. 14).

“If you were a recyclable material, this place would be called Disney World,” Jay Stanford said. “When you get on those conveyer belts, you’re going for a ride and you’re going for a professional ride — a ride that’s going to last for many years.”

Through the city’s Regional Materials Recovery Facility located on Manning Drive, Stanford said London residents can now recycle more products at a lower cost.

“Because of this facility, we’re able to expand the blue box program — we’re about to add a number of materials, primarily plastic materials (like clamshell), which can now be recycled there,” he said. “The second most important part will be that this facility will produce cost-savings. Already we’ve seen a reduction of about $500,000 associated with this facility.

“As more partnering municipalities bring their recycling to this facility, (it) will be further optimized and that will produce a lower cost to London taxpayers.”

It was designed to not only process materials from this area, but also from municipalities within an hour radius of the city. Through a two-stream (two separate systems for both paper and containers) approach to recycling, there is more control over the quality of oncoming and outgoing materials.

Another reason cost-savings are seen is because the city saved $320,000 through a six-year recyclable collection contract that, which was awarded to Miller Waste Systems Inc. for $730,000.

Construction of the 75,000 sq. ft. facility began three years ago. It unofficially opened its doors this past July.

While only around 30,000 tonnes of London resident’s recyclables are expected to stream through the $22.4 million outfit annually, it was made to handle upwards of 75,000 tonnes.

Approximately 40 people are currently employed at this facility, but that will increase to 75 once it’s running at full capacity.

London’s Acting Mayor Bud Polhill said he’s hopeful other municipalities will fill the extra capacity.

“They’re taking their recyclables somewhere now, so it’s possible they could come to us and we may even expand their acceptance of recyclables,” Polhill said, placing credit for the cheaper costs to residents on partnerships.

Funding for the facility came through two streams, the Federal Gas Tax money and a $4.4 million grant from Waste Diversion Ontario through its Continuous Improvement Fund (CIF). These CIFS are given to municipalities in support of projects or programs that promote recycling.

Andy Campbell, director of the CIF for Waste Diversion Ontario, said he’s excited for what this facility offers.

“It allows an opportunity for the citizens of London and the other municipalities around London to increase the types of packaging and paper they recycle and increase their recycling rate,” Campbell said. “Our objective with Waste Diversion Ontario in London was by building a larger facility here, some of the smaller facilities that are less efficient and more expensive would essentially be put out of business.”

He added all communities within an hour’s radius of London could ship to this facility.

Representing the outfit’s main funder, Elgin-Middlesex-London MP Joe Preston said these types of projects benefit the region.

“They’re the type of project that add value to our community, remove greenhouse gases, remove articles from the landfill and reuse them,” Preston said. “These are the right things to do.”