Got junk? Like, gigantic junk? If you do, then today’s your chance to dump it on the city’s doorstep — legally.
Public works staffers are holding St. Albert’s first-ever large item drop-off event at the city’s recycling depot today, from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. City residents will be able to drop any oversized junk at the yard and have the city haul it away for disposal.
Previously, residents had to haul these items to an Eco-Station or landfill for disposal themselves. This event, prompted by a request from council, gives residents a local alternative, said Christian Benson, the city’s solid waste co-ordinator.
The yard will have several giant bins on hand to accept any furniture, kitchen appliances, toys, bikes and other objects people no longer want, Benson said.
“Things like ovens, stoves, washers and dryers are nice because they’re essentially scrap metal,” he said.
The yard will not accept commercial, biomedical or construction waste, Benson said, nor any tires, car parts or barbecues.
“Anything containing Freon [such as a fridge] we can’t take,” he added, as that’s extremely expensive to remove.
Any dropped-off items should be fundamentally unusable, Benson emphasized — either damaged beyond repair or inappropriate for reuse (such as a mattress). Still-useful items should be donated or left at the city’s take-it-or-leave-it event each spring.
Residents have to pay the disposal cost for any items they drop off using garbage tags, Benson said. There’s no cashier at the depot so organizers decided to use tags instead. Chair-sized items cost two tags, while couch-sized ones will cost you three. At $2.15 a tag, he noted, it’s actually slightly cheaper to dump a couch at this event (cost: $6.45) than it would be to drop it at an Eco-Station (cost: $12). Tags will not be sold at the event and should be bought beforehand at city hall, Fountain Park Pool, or Servus Credit Union Place.
The city plans to make this an annual event, Benson said, but that depends on the turnout. Most of these large items would either be sold for scrap or sent to landfill.
A new exhibit at an Edmonton museum should show residents the heavy impact that brushing their teeth can have on their local rivers.
The travelling exhibit called A River Runs Through It opens today at the Royal Alberta Museum in Edmonton. The exhibit, created by the World Wildlife Fund (WWF) and Quebec’s Sherbrooke Nature and Science Museum is meant to teach people about the impact people have on Canada’s rivers.
The exhibit’s title is an apt description of Canada, said Rob Powell, director of the WWF’s St. Albert branch.
“Rivers are the blue veins that run through all these lands,” he said, and our environmental and economic health depends on their protection.
This is the first time that the exhibit has travelled outside of Quebec, says Mark Steinhilber, head of life sciences at the museum. The exhibit focuses on the importance of water conservation and protection.
“We need to realize that this is not an infinite resource. It can be used up, and it needs to be managed properly,” he said.
Visitors can lift a heavy bucket to see how much water they waste while brushing their teeth with the tap on, Steinhilber said, manage a dam and follow a salmon as it makes its way up a river to spawn.
Museum staffers have also added information about the North Saskatchewan River to the exhibit.
“People always appreciate the river valley,” Steinhilber said, “but they don’t always appreciate the river itself.”
He hoped people would come away from the exhibit more knowledgeable about the river and what lives in it.
This bilingual exhibit runs until Feb. 5. Call 780-453-9100 for details.
