Green Coast Rubbish was contacted by the North Shore Recycling Program to assist with the closure of their office in December 2015 after a decision was taken to phase out the program. NSRP provided contract management and community engagement for waste reduction, recycling and composting for the last 25 years as a shared service through a partnership funded by the three North Shore municipalities: District of North Vancouver, City of North Vancouver and District of West Vancouver. NSRP’s original mandate 25 years ago was to specifically provide shared management of the curbside blue box recycling contract. Over the years its mandate and staffing expanded significantly to focus on education and outreach for the three North Shore municipalities.
The challenge:
The challenge for this project was that North Shore Recycling wanted all of their office furniture and material to be reused if possible, and if something had to be recycled, it was the last resort. Needless to say, we were up for the challenge.
Donated this:
After sourcing our donation partners for the office furniture and the majority of the electronics, we began the task of dismantling office cubicles and larger furniture pieces. Next we executed the sizable process of loading, packing and transporting the goods for reuse. We were able to donate 101 of the 106 yards of material that we removed!
Recycled that:
The remaining 5 yards of material consisting of paper and obsolete electronics was recycled through our local recycling partners. Our goal was to achieve a zero waste project where recycling was a last resort and we met our target.
Photo gallery:
Notable quote:
Logistically this project had some unique challenges but it couldn’t have worked out better. It’s fantastic that the majority of the material was donated for reuse and ultimately diverted from the landfill.
– Eamonn Duignan, President & CEO, Green Coast Rubbish