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On May 25 the Recycling Society held its AGM. 2021/22 was another successful year for the MIRS. We continued to fulfill our mandate to safely provide a comprehensive recycling service to the island. Our staff and volunteers worked hard to provide a friendly and well-organized experience for those visiting the Depot, and islanders continued to make good use of the facility, including supporting it through memberships.
This year is one of transition, with a number of long-standing Board members deciding to retire. We will greatly miss the contributions of Vicki Turay, Deb Foote, Lynda Smyth and John Shayler. We are excited to see a number of excellent new members elected to the Board, and we look forward to their contributions in the future: Sean Tucker, Michael Jones, Kathy Kaiser and Richard Jarco. The Depot continued to operate safely and efficiently through the year, with no incidents reported. We continue to upgrade our safety and housekeeping inspections under the guidance of Bill Warning and Grant Buday. Covid led to many changes in Depot Operations, but islanders have adapted well to the changes with only moderate grumbling (LOL). Our volunteers are an integral part of the society, although the role has changed somewhat due to Covid limitations. We are in the process of getting volunteers reengaged in actual recycling work. A volunteer survey indicated generally very positive feedback. Thanks to everyone who volunteers, and we are always looking for new people who would like to join the crew! In 2021/22 we put extra effort into our communications. We want to keep islanders informed in a timely manner on recycling developments, as well as helping to educate the community on the topic. We developed a new web site: www.maynerecycles.ca – check it out. We created out own Facebook page, and finally we engaged a Communications Coordinator to keep all these shiny new tools up to date and looking good. We have already seen a significant increase in traffic through these sites as a result. This year we decided to accept “non-packaging plastic” at the depot. There is no funding available for the costs of doing this, so we request a financial contribution from those who can afford to do so to offset these costs. The alternative would be to see the material end up in Hartland landfill, but through this program the material is recycled into useful products. We are anticipating heavy traffic at the depot this summer, and are implementing plans to minimize the lineups as much as possible. You can do your part by careful pre-sorting before coming to the depot, and trying to take no more than ten minutes max to complete the task. I would like to thank all the staff, volunteers, and depot users for their contributions to a successful year, and we look forward to continuing to serve the community and reduce our collective environmental footprint in 2022. - Don Eadie |