No need to haul your paint and batteries into Edmonton, citizens; St. Albert now has a hazardous waste depot of its own.
City solid waste programs co-ordinator Christian Benson announced Thursday that the city had opened a household hazardous waste depot at its recycling depot. The roughly $12,000-a-year initiative was included in the city’s 2011 budget.
It’s only getting off the ground now because staffers were busy setting up the new green-and-brown-bin program, Benson says. “This is something we’d earmarked for early fall.”
As of Oct. 1, he says, staff will accept most forms of household hazardous waste year-round at the recycling depot near the public works yard. “Basically, it’s going to be like a miniature Eco-Station,” he says, referring to similar facilities in Edmonton.
Residents can drop almost all paints, glues, waxes, oils, polishes, spray cans, batteries, insecticides, household cleaners and fluorescent light bulbs at the depot, Benson says. “The majority of stuff that comes in is paint.” Some items, like paint, will be recycled; others, like insecticides, will be burned at Swan Hills.
“There’s only a handful of things we won’t take,” he continues, including any explosive, radioactive, or biomedical materials. Residents should call the RCMP to handle these items. Some items, such as tar, tires and gasoline still have to go to an Edmonton Eco-Station.
All products should be brought in their original, labeled containers for ease of handling, Benson says. Staffers reserve the right to refuse any unsafe goods.
The new program costs just a little more than the old annual toxic roundup, he says, but is also a lot more work. The depot is cutting back its hours as a result. As of October 17, the depot will be open from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. Tuesdays, Wednesdays and Fridays, from 12 to 8 Thursdays, and 9 to 5 on Saturdays. It will be closed Sundays and Mondays.
Benson says he expects a big wave of hazardous waste at the depot in the next few weeks. “I’m sure people have tonnes of stuff stored up.”
A full list of accepted items is available at www.stalbert.ca/household-hazardous-information. Call Benson at 780-418-6699 for details.
City residents should check their windows for concussed birds this month as the fall migration gets into full swing.
Local birders have been watching the skies in recent weeks as hundreds of birds head south through St. Albert.
There were almost 600 ducks on Nadeau Pond a few weeks ago, notes birder Dan Stoker, although their numbers have dropped considerably since then. Large troops of yellowlegs and dowitchers have also been strolling its shores, as have green-winged teals. (Dowitchers tend to poke their long beaks into the mud like a sewing machine, he notes.)
While some birds start as early as July, Stoker says, most people interpret the sight of Canada geese flying south as the official start of the fall migration. Those birds have been in curiously short supply this year compared to last, he notes, so we could be due for a mass wave in the weeks ahead.
Fall is a tough time to start birding, says veteran birder Peter Demulder, as none of the birds look like they do in the bird guides. “The fall plumage is very drab, and the males look like females.”
One solution is to listen for calls. White-fronted geese look like Canada geese from below, Demulder says as an example, but sound like yapping puppies instead of honking horns. Tundra and trumpeter swans are both bright white, but tundras sound like whistles while trumpeters are more like trombones. Both should land en masse at Big Lake sometime this month, he says.
Another sign of the fall migration is the sound of birds smacking into windows, Stoker notes. Most migrants are newborns raised in the forest, he explains, and aren’t used to the way windows can reflect the sky.
Residents should expect a fair number of collisions this month as a result, Stoker says. He suggests using drapes and hawk silhouettes to steer birds away from your windows. “Put something in the way or try to mask that window somehow so they at least have a chance to realize this isn’t a place to fly.”
Canada’s air is pretty clean, according to the World Health Organization, but the rest of the world isn’t so lucky.
The World Health Organization (WHO) released a new study this week on air quality in some 1,100 cities around the world. The study specifically focussed on particulate matter — tiny, dust-like pollutants that can burrow deep into the body and cause heart disease, lung cancer and asthma.
The study found that Canada had the third-best air in the world in terms of particulates, coming behind Mauritius and Estonia.
Whitehorse had the world’s best air, according to the study, with just three micrograms of particulates smaller than 10 microns (PM10) per cubic metre of air a year. Edmonton (and, by association, St. Albert) placed 86th with 11. Ahwaz, Iran, had the worst air with 372 micrograms.
Canada’s clean air is a combination of strict environmental laws, population and geography, says Warren Kindzierski, professor of environmental health at the University of Alberta and St. Albert resident. Whitehorse is the tops in part due to its small size (population: 20,500) and long winters, which cut down on dust. Mexico’s Mexicali is near the bottom, in contrast, because it’s a major processing centre in a dry region with 650,000 people.
About 55 per cent of the cities surveyed were above the WHO’s maximum annual exposure limit for PM10, the study notes, which is 20 micrograms per cubic metre. The WHO called on nations to do more to reduce air pollution and the 1.34 million deaths it causes a year.
Reducing air pollution would mean clearer skies and better health for the Edmonton region, according to Kindzierski. Most of our pollution comes from local sources like cars, he says, so transportation should be our main focus for reduction.
The full study is available at www.who.int.
