The following letter was sent to West Howe Sound director Lee Turnbull and copied to Coast Reporter.
Dear Lee:
I am one local resident who has made good use of the Gibsons Recycling Depot. My family and I have made a habit of collecting our household recyclable waste and taking it to the depot on our way to the bank or to get groceries. The staff there are always helpful and friendly while providing this free community service. And for a nominal fee, we have taken paint cans, batteries, old computer monitors and construction waste to the depot. On occasion, we have even dropped off our household garbage when we missed the regular pickup or were going on vacation.
Using this facility has been very convenient and is a benefit to us individually and to the entire community, as it avoids multiple individual trips to our landfill site in Sechelt.
I went to the depot last Saturday (July 18) to confirm what I had read in Coast Reporter about the depot no longer accepting household recycling. I then took my recyclables to the containers in the IGA parking lot near Venture Way and Payne, which did not seem able to handle the volume of materials and people using it. I understand that the materials deposited there are first transported to the Sechelt landfill site before being trucked to Vancouver for processing, which is inefficient (in comparison to the depot, which transports the recyclables directly from Gibsons to Vancouver for processing).
Is there an obstacle to developing a good working relationship between the SCRD and the Gibsons Recycling Depot? If so, I hope it can be resolved.
Tony Bonnici
Grantham's Landing
