Another Recycling Round Up success in Pincher Creek

Toni Lucas - Pincher Creek's 2016 Recycling Round-up was held on Saturday June 18 at the Ranchland Mall parking lot. A number of organizations participated. Pincher Planters held their annual plant swap, the Splash Park Committee held a fundraising barbecue and pancake breakfast, the Pincher Creek Lions Club collected eyeglasses, DBS Environmental collected hazardous waste like electronics, batteries and paints, and a paper shredder truck from Lethbridge Mobile Shredding was on hand for safe disposal of sensitive documents. A big draw for the day was the recycle swap.

Crew: Michallie Brown, Cory Pennington, Vince Beaugened, Melissa Graham, Danielle Johnston, Marie Everts, Councillor Jim Litkowski, and a photobomber

Pincher Planters Sandra Schwanke, Barb Patterson, Sandra Rast, Petra Dyck, and Noreen Robbins

Town and MD workers laid out an area for the swap and brought items out early in the morning and people then could take what they had a use for, while others brought items they no longer needed or wanted for others to take home for free or with a donation of their choosing. This recycling initiative keeps still useful items out of the landfill. This year there were items ranging from DVD's and VHS tapes, seasonal decorations, bicycles, household items and appliances, lawn mowers, furniture, lamps, building supplies, tools, and anything else that someone might say 'I don't need this, but someone else might'. If it was not taken away by the end of the day it went to the appropriate disposal stream, whether that was electronics, recycling, or to the landfill. This is in cooperation with Alberta Recycling.

Spray Park BBQ fundraising crew

In the same spirit a children's toy/clothing and book swap during the same weekend down at Napi Friendship Centre so families who had outgrown items could could feel confident that the items would go to other families who would be able to use them once again. Parent Link Centre, McMan, Brighter Futures and Napi Friendship Centre worked together to make this initiative happen.

Derek Fletcher, Lethbridge Mobile Shredding

John Glenn, DBS Environmental

Even though there is no tally on how much was taken away by citizens during the swap, the Town Operations Department estimated the innitative prevented the following from entering the landfill;

A total of 267 electronic items

• 115 TV’s that are smaller than 30”
• 11 TV’s larger than 30”
• 44 computer & Servers
• 22 Laptop Notebook & Tablet computers
• 75 Printer, Copier, Scanner, Fax

Paint

• Five bins equaling 3000 L of Paint
• 77 cans of spray paint

949 kg of Household Hazardous Waste

Paper

• approximately 1.5 tonnes or 15 bins of paper were shredded