A new Waste Wise program initiative by the Cariboo Chilcotin Conservation Society (CCCS), the local refillery NEXT GENeral - Mercantile + Refillery and the City of Williams Lake may help you unmask more sustainably.
Vitacore, a company out of Burnaby is working to collect and recycle some of the single-use medical masks and some other types of personal protective equipment (PPE).
Businesses and persons who want to prevent disposable masks from ending up on streets or in landfills can now bring them to drop boxes located at Delainey’s Centre, the CCCS office or even host their own drop box in order to collect the used PPE.
Daniella Gastaldello, owner of NEXT GENeral Mercantile + Refillery helped spearhead the program, but gives credit to Beth Veenkamp, economic development officer for the city of Williams Lake for supporting the idea. She also thanked Oliver Berger of the CCCS for being her partner on rolling out the project.
“It’s not the easiest and cheapest form of diverting this waste, but it can be done,” posted Berger in his video for the group’s Facebook page.
Berger was surprised by the response to the Feb. 1 Trash Talk Tuesday video, which he said just happened to be about the topic of mask recycling, even though they had been providing the service since 2021.
“It’s all about timing,” said Berger.
The video has since been watched over 1,200 times and Berger has had requests from as far away as 100 Mile House and Quesnel from businesses and citizens looking to get a box to recycle the disposable masks.
So far he has distributed over 20 boxes throughout the area, many to businesses and including to some schools and some private citizens, though he said so far no restaurants have requested any recycling boxes. Anyone can create their own collection box and then empty them into the main collection bin at Delainey’s as well.
Even masks picked up off the ground and a bit dirty can be recycled, said Berger, so feel free to toss them in if you pick them up from the sidewalk.
Vitacore’s website states that once the masks arrive at the recycling facility, they are “sanitized at high heat, sorted, shredded and prepared for melting.”
The pieces then get melted down and formed into polypropylene pellets which can be repurposed into construction material to help make concrete reinforcement and textiles.
According to the Vitacore website, 63,000 tonnes of medical PPE will end up in Canadian landfills by the end of the year if people and organizations do not work to recycle these products.
They have calculated that amount of PPE as being enough to reach to the moon and back six and a half times, or about 2.5 million km.
Since the Trash Talk video went up and Berger has been delivering the boxes, the group has filled one of the large collection boxes to return to Vitacore, estimated to hold over 16,000 masks.
Read more: Waste Wise program means more skaters on the ice in Williams Lake
ruth.lloyd@wltribune.com
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