As part of this series of first person adventures into the unknown, I have been known to take some rides in various interesting vehicles.
I took a ride in one of the new transit buses, and also in the new street sweeper that the City had acquired.
My latest ride was right up there. I took a ride on a Loraas recycling truck. Yes, I got to see that part of the process where Loraas goes about collecting all the recyclables that go into curbside recycling bins.
The introduction of these 95-gallon blue recycling carts to the Battlefords is a story I've followed over the past couple of years. Just two years ago I did a story about the introduction of single-stream curbside recycling, which came into effect Sept.1 of that year.
Now I was about to see the actual day-to-day operations for myself.
The background: Loraas Environmental Services has been offering a "one cart, no sort" residential curbside recycling service. According to their promotional material, their single-stream or co-mingled program means no more sorting of materials for the customers.
Customers are provided a list of allowable materials and also a list of what isn't allowed. Mostly, it's pretty easy to follow if common sense prevails. Allowable materials include paper materials such as cardboard, newspapers and flyers, magazines, books, telephone directories, brown paper bags, tissue roll cores, copier paper and envelopes.
Containers accepted include aluminum cans, household tin cans, milk and juice cartons, plastic soft drink and water bottles, plastic grocery bags and household plastic containers and bottles that have the triangular recycling symbol on them with a number from one through seven.
There are numerous items they do not accept including: hazardous material and contaminated items, auto parts and batteries, scrap metal, fuel containers, plastic toys, heavily dyed items or glass. They aren't accepting glass bottles and jars, glass cups, dishes, ashtrays, window glass, mirrors, Pyrex, ceramics, light bulbs or crystal.
They also won't accept soiled items or waxed, plasticised or food contaminated paper, Styrofoam, aluminum or shiny gift paper or medical waste. The full list of allowable and non-allowable materials can be found on the brochure for residential roadside recycling offered by Loraas.
I got there bright and early on Wednesday morning, Aug. 28, and was picked up by Nick Longley, the driver of Loraas' front-end Curotto truck.
Our destination was the Killdeer neighbourhood where Nick's Mack truck went about its appointed rounds on a typical North Battleford run. Typically, the Loraas recycling truck does its rounds every two weeks in the city.
Nick had already been in Fairview that morning and had just started Killdeer when he was called to pick me up for the ride-along.
It takes a bit of co-ordination to empty the blue curbside carts. Clients are typically instructed on where the ideal location would be for a cart to be placed - usually right next to the curb in most cases. If it's near a parked car, it should be about three feet apart from both the curb and the car.
That makes it easy for the Loraas truck to come by and empty the blue carts. Nick would stop the front of the truck right next to the blue cart or bin, then with the push of his control levers giant prongs would grab the cart and empty the entire contents into a large container called a "Curotto-Can" located at the front of the Loraas truck.
The control levers Nick uses to pick up the carts are essentially joysticks, similar to what you would use playing video games. He calls it similar to trying to retrieve stuffed animals while playing the "claw" game at the mall.
Moving the joysticks allows him to move the prongs into position to basically grab or "claw" the bins, lift and empty the contents into the Curotto-Can.
"It's that easy - just lift them up and put them in, eh?" I remarked.
"Yeah," replied Nick, who added "it takes a lot of practice." He had been doing this run for over a year now, he said. "I was definitely not this good when I started."
Nick said using the joystick to lift the carts up requires a lot of hand-eye co-ordination and is definitely not as simple as pushing a button - at least not with these particular trucks.
It took a while for him to map out where all the blue bins were and the sequencing of routes to get them all in order.
He told me that on collection days, his vehicle would collect from 400 blue bins placed at the curbside throughout the Battlefords. It's just him on the route serving the community for the entire day.
Nowadays he is able to get a typical run done in about about six to six-and-a-half hours. Nick told me that when he first started it took quite a bit longer, up to 12 hours.
But he's been able to reduce that time, thanks to plenty of practice and better sequencing. Nick has a list of addresses and names of clients that he follows.
Every so often after a few bins were emptied, Nick would use a second joystick to take the front container of the truck and hoist that right over top of then cab area, and then deposit the contents into the large container in the back of the truck.
When that would happen the whole truck would shake and rattle.
Nick noted that when it's windy it tends to be a bit more difficult due to debris that might fly off as the contents are unloaded into the back container. That means having to get out of the truck to retrieve those items and put them back in the Curotto-Can.
One big part of the job from a Loraas perspective is making sure people are aware of all the rules they must follow - the main one being to have their carts out on the curbside by 7 a.m. on collection day.
One of their main requests of customers is that they do not bag or tie their recyclables before depositing them in the cart. The exception is with plastic grocery bags and shredded paper, which they ask to go inside one big bag and tied closed. Otherwise, that paper could fly away every time a bin is lifted.
Most people follow most of the rules, said Nick. "It just takes time."
Overall, Nick says about 3,000 kilograms of recyclables are brought back to Loraas on a given trip.
"It's really nice not to see this stuff go in the landfill, that's for sure," Nick said.
According to their promotional material, Loraas estimates up to 60 per cent of household waste could be diverted from the landfill under this process. I know that diverting items away from the landfill is a very big deal for the City. I've sat in on meetings at City Hall where councillors would make known their displeasure at how fast the existing landfill was filling up, making clear they were not happy at having to spend over a million dollars for cell expansion.
When I talked to Ruebecca Fiddler, branch manager, back at the Loraas offices, she said the "more material we can definitely divert from our landfills helps everybody in the long run, not only environmentally but also cost-effectively, too."
Anyone seeking more information about curbside recycling can contact Loraas at 306-445-3900. As well, they also have depots set up behind Frontier Mall, at the Civic Centre and at the old creamery site for those not wanting to pay the fee for a curbside bin.
Basically, my experience was exactly what I described - riding along, with the truck stopping to lift up the blue bins and empty them, and every so often the contents of the Curotto-Can would be hoisted up and emptied into the back of the truck.
We finished the Killdeer neighbourhood and then went south of Territorial Drive, and then finally after about an hour we headed back to headquarters where I was dropped off.
All in all, it was an interesting experience to get a first-hand look at the actual process of what happens to your recycled materials as it is picked up. What I didn't see was the end result when it is finally delivered back to the Loraas facility in North Battleford.
After the material is dropped off, it is baled and transported to the Loraas depot in Saskatoon by Kindersley Trailer. There, the bales are broken open and the items are placed in mechanical separation machines that then does the sorting alongside workers at that facility.
The end result is re-baled into recyclable material that can be sold to purchasers of such material, and there are different markets for different products depending on where it goes.
That process, though, is really the next chapter of the story. Maybe one of these days I should see that process for myself, too.
