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Kamloops News

Tournament Capital Centre working towards zero waste

KAMLOOPS – The City of Kamloops Tournament Capital Centre has entered the second phase of the Working Towards Zero Waste Initiative with the roll-out of the new waste diversion stations at the facility this week.

City sustainability staff will be at TCC this Thursday and Friday educating the public about the new waste diversion opportunities available to them at the facility, including what can and cannot be recycled and composted on site.

For the past five months TCC City staff have testing these new waste diversion tools with several waste management practice changes in their offices and staff rooms.

“It was a bit of a shock to some of the staff to show up to work one January morning to find their garbage cans missing and new recycling bins in their place”, said Marc Solomon, Sustainability Programs Coordinator for the City. “It has been a challenging project to implement due to the size of the facility and the diversity of users at TCC, but the City staff have really stepped up and adopted this new waste diversion culture”.

In the TCC staff areas alone there has been a 500% increase in recycling diversion, with recycling volume rising from 245 L to 1470 L per week. Diversion of compostable organics in staff areas has increased as well with no diversion in November to 140 L per week today.

The City is now asking the public to show their support for this initiative by taking the time to think about whether their waste can be recycled, composted, refunded, or reused rather than being thrown in the garbage.  Once in the garbage it goes to the landfill where it is buried resulting in the production of the harmful greenhouse gas called methane.

In addition to the new waste diversion stations at TCC, there are new recycling bins in all of the washrooms and change rooms, new waste diversion educational signs and displays throughout the facility and new reusable fitness equipment wipe down cloths in all of the gyms.

“Simply by making the change from paper towels for wiping down fitness equipment to using reusable wipe down cloths, we have reduced our waste by approximately 5,760 kg per year”, said Jeff Putnam, Parks and Civic Facilities Manager. “This is a win-win situation as not only are we reducing our waste, we are also saving $8,700 a year in paper towel costs”.

Despite being replaced by new waste diversion stations, the retired garbage cans will not be landfilled. “All of the old cans will be cleaned and assigned new jobs in the City including everything from being the new inserts for the new compost collection bins, to collecting the new fitness equipment wipe-down cloths, to storing pool noodles at the pool” said Marc Solomon.  “Every one of the bins has been reused in a positive way to further reduce waste and costs”.

Plans are underway to expand the Zero Waste Initiative to other public recreation facilities such as Interior Savings Centre and McArthur Island Sport & Event Centre in 2016.

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