Kitimat’s non-profit recycling society KUTE would like to expand to plastics but lacks the storage capacity to do so at its current location.
Kitimat Understanding the Environment (KUTE) board chair Peter King said there are seven grades of recyclable plastic and that there isn’t enough space at the current facility to sort and store each category and prepare for shipment.
“We’ve been looking at various places around town, preferably something covered, which we would need if you look outside now,” added King, referring to this winter’s snowfall accumulation.
“Plastics are on the top of everyone’s mind right now,” said King of growing reports of mountains of discarded plastic floating in the world’s oceans and the discovery of micro-plastics’ seaborne life.
Conceived in 1990 as an idea of students from Mount Elizabeth Secondary School, KUTE obtained society status and registration as a charity and moved to expand the type and quantity of recyclables it can take.
It’s supported by an annual grant from the District of Kitimat, which this year is $148,758, as well as revenue from the onward sale of recycled material, and grants and donations.
King said the district’s support of KUTE reflects the amount of material being recycled that would otherwise end up in the district’s landfill.
“The more we can keep out of the landfill, the less it costs [the district] and the longer the landfill can be kept operating,” he said.
“I really have to praise our council,” King added of its support for Kute over the years.
Aside from grants and donations, KUTE also earns money by selling material such as cardboard and newsprint for recycling.
Last year the society expanded its recycling activities when it purchased a machine that first breaks down and then compresses styrofoam.
Called a densifer, the $20,000 device can consume the equivalent of a 40-foot seacan full of styrofoam and then break it up and reduce it to two 1,000-pound bricks that fit onto two pallets.
King said the densifier is one example of where KUTE has lead the way in recycling in the north.
“Terrace recycling only accepts domestic styrofoam, not commercial, so we have furniture stores from Terrace load up their trucks with styrofoam and drop it off when they deliver furniture in Kitimat,” noted King.
What KUTE doesn’t take is glass, a product King says is infinitely recyclable but for which the society can’t find a market.
And while the idea of curbside pickup has been discussed, the challenge is not with the collecting but with receiving, King noted.
“It’s really about how you deal with it and how you process it,” he said.
One factor that’s affected other reycling ventures in Canada and the U.S. was the Chinese reluctance at the start of the year to accept North American material.
Too often, said King, material of all kinds was simply packed into seacans and shipped to China without first being sorted.
“In effect, they were wanting to let others do their work,” he said of municipalities and others who shipped their material in that condition.
He said this doesn’t affect KUTE, which implemented a very high level of separation of material right from the start.
“If we didn’t, and something was found that shouldn’t be there, we’d get back-charged,” King emphasized.
Having clean recyclable material means KUTE can also get higher prices for what it ships out.
King said plastic isn’t the only material KUTE could process if they have more space. He said they were also considering recycling textiles.