New Solid Waste & Recycling Facility Opens
by Scott A. Sumner
www.thunderbaybusiness.ca
Many of us may not think of the “ dump” as such an involved place but the new Thunder Bay Solid Waste & Recycling Facility is really an impressive operation. Recently completed at a cost of $11 million dollars it will take recycling and the environment to a new level in Thunder Bay and provide waste disposal services to local residents for over 50 years.
“ New more efficient arrangement of solid waste disposal will take place in the new facility. The main advantages here are traffic, dealing with the waste stream and getting more things out of the waste stream instead of burying them,” said Rick Latta, Supervisor- Landfill & Recycling. “ The bigger vehicles will service in their own scale that is unmanned. They will have a RF reader tag on their windshield. The gate will open, read their tag, take a picture of their license plate, tell who they are, the weight and then print out a receipt. The gate will open and the truck will go over to the waste area.
“ The rest of the more residential customers will come to our household hazard waste area and recycle area first. We have expanded the number of bins for cardboard’s and plastics as well as electronic items. This is all done before the scale. We were finding the line ups were getting too long so we have another road that will allow the cars to stay off the new Mapleward Road entrance. In the past the vehicles were on the John Road. You will have an in scale and an out scale. Next you will go to a transfer station where you can sort. The first bin will be steel. The next bin will be for bulky items and so on. We can now take tires with no charge and will expand to clean wood waste and add other items into the system,” said Latta. “ We have 4 huge dumping bins. The vehicle will back up to the 55 yard containers and will be serviced by our own units. This will help with not damaging expensive consumer vehicles although some vehicles will still have to go up to the tipping face. The vehicle will come down to the out scale and pay and be on their way.”
Also in the new facility is a new administration building, a new shop for their vehicles, new wash bay and fueling stations. The site itself is a massive improvement. The old site was built in 1972. “ Our landfill is good for 200 years and the facility is good for 50 years. The old site will be closed and the gate off John street will be shut. We have had 300 to 500 vehicles 6 days a week in the past and have more in the summer time. We generate gross revenue of $2.5 million in the facility. We have 1000 hectares from John Street almost 3/4 of the way to Oliver Road and from Mapleward to Gratton ” said Rick Latta.
“ The facility is state of the art in Canada. The technology in our kiosks is all modern and new. It should make an impact on the environment. Customers can bring materials here and recycle rather than just bring it to the land fill base and dumping it. We believe it will make it more efficient and help recycling. The majority of the facility was funded from the landfill reserve fund which formed a component,” said Pat Mauro, Manager Engineering Division. “ We will be extracting methane gas from the east cell of the land fill site. In partnership with Thunder Bay Hydro we are looking at a generating electricity starting with 3.2 mega watts which will be sold
to Ontario Power Authority through a standard offer program agreement. That revenue will go to the city. Our extraction piping and wells are being constructed currently and be competed at the end of this year. Then Thunder Bay Hydro will complete their work by July 2010. It could
go to 6 mega watt with a 11 cents per kilowatt returned to Thunder Bay Hydro. It will be interesting.”
