Open letter to Whitehorse’s mayor and council:
As the president of the Raven Recycling Society, I was impressed with the municipal candidates’ desire to understand more about the complex issues regarding waste management and recycling. Most of the potential municipal officials came to Raven to learn about our operational changes and future goals, even in the midst of road and depot construction.
Thankfully, the public has kindly endured the road detours and our temporary depot; soon we’ll be ready to re-open a new and improved recycling centre. On Nov. 5 we’ll start with a soft opening. Our grand reopening celebration will take place on Saturday, Nov. 17. We hope you’ll join us in the celebration of a bright new future of increased waste diversion for Yukon!
Raven Recycling, as a social enterprise, works for the benefit of the whole community, rather than just for profit. We are working hard to support the city’s declared desire to reach 50 per cent diversion by 2015, by making our services more convenient, while remaining focused on recycling a broad range of materials, regardless of their profit value.
The new, improved public drop-off area now consists of bunkers which offer a reduced need to sort. We are down to six stations instead of a dozen. The public will no longer need to sort plastics, for example. Our new groups are glass, paper products, plastics, cardboard, tin cans and milk cartons/Tetra Paks. We will continue to collect smaller items in the depot itself, such as plastic bags and aluminum foil.
New depot features include enhanced parking, a larger depot with improved public traffic flow, and a revamped re-store to help divert as many different reusable items as possible from the landfill.
And we’re excited to announce, thanks to the City of Whitehorse’s work on Industrial Road, we will have no more dust clouds!
City council, we look forward to working with you as you develop and implement a new solid waste management plan. We are pleased to be working actively with you to provide long term solutions for Whitehorse and Yukon.
See you on Nov. 17 at Raven Recycling’s grand reopening!
Jacqueline Bedard, President
Raven Recycling Society