At the beginning of this week, Raven Recycling talked to a couple of people who had heard that we have sent our mixed plastics and possibly other recyclables to the landfill. Rather than let the rumour spread, I thought it important to write.
I would like to assure our customers and the community at large that Raven sends all its recyclables, except glass, to a number of reputable brokers based in Vancouver and Toronto. They, in turn, sell the product to buyers in North America and abroad. (Because of the low volume and high weight of glass, it is crushed on site and sent to the landfill as cover.)
We recycle #1, #2 and mixed plastics. Ultimately, most products and their packaging are mixed plastics thus making it our highest volume of plastics received. Last year, we shipped 107 tonnes of mixed plastics out of the territory.
It is true that mixed plastics are the most expensive material to divert from the landfill because of their low value on the market. To offset these costs, we recently upgraded our warehouse to include a sorting line allowing us to extract the higher-priced plastics out of the general mix. This makes recycling plastics much more lucrative so we can recycle more.
Raven Recycling and its board take seriously our mandate of diverting materials from the landfill to protect the environment. We welcome new and old customers to use our new drop-off where we now sort your plastics and paper for you. We believe the more convenient our system, the more we as a community can divert from the landfill - a goal we hope everyone shares.
Joy Snyder, Executive Director
Raven Recycling Society
Whitehorse