2003 Rs of Excellence Award Winners

Champagne Edition manufactures a wide variety of products from recycled tires, including curb ramps and various sizes of patio tiles and bricks. However, perhaps their most successful product has been the Cozy Cow livestock mattress. This unique product has been shown to result in healthier, happier dairy cows, who in turn produce more milk.

Cozy Cow mattresses have been a marketing success literally around the world. The mattress utilizes rubber crumb which is inserted into quilted fabric channels, providing a soft stall covering which is very comfortable for the cows, while also reducing the amount of bedding required.

Champagne Edition’s Cozy Cow mattress represents a successful product marketing Alberta recycled material to the world.

The members of the Athabasca Regional Waste Management Services Commission, are the County of Athabasca, Town of Athabasca and the Eastern portion of the MD of Lesser Slave River (Smith and Flatbush). The Commission Members, after many years of planning have put in place a regional waste system that includes a Class II C Landfill, Six Full Service Rural Transfer Sites and a Recycling Processing Facility. The Commission also offers commercial cardboard pick-up, as well as residential and commercial blue box pick-up.

Along with the Facilities owned and operated by the Commission, the Commission has also developed long term partnerships with a number of organizations, including:

• Blue Heron Vocational Training, who own and operate a Bottle Depot along side the recycling processing facility in Athabasca. Through this partnership, the Commission has created “one stop shopping” for recycling. The partnership also contracts labor from Blue Heron, providing jobs and training for individuals with developmental disabilities.
• Village of Boyle, who put in place a Residential Blue Box Recycle Program with materials delivered to the Athabasca Recycling Facility for processing.
• Dr. Recycle, a sub-contractor providing pick-up of Blue Box materials from the Village of Boyle Commercial Businesses and the Town of Athabasca residents.

The Commission Currently collects, processes and ships a wide range of materials to end use processors: One of the major future plans for the Commission is to provide a centralized composting facility for the area and continue to remove as many recyclable materials from the waste stream as possible. Waste reduction is truly a high priority for this Commission.

Evergreen Theatre is an environmental education company dedicated to promoting sustainable living in Alberta.

In 1999 Evergreen Theatre launched a program dedicated to re-vitalizing the 4 Rs called JUNK! The Musical. Through charismatic characters and dynamic songs, JUNK! inspires school-aged children to take personal action towards waste reduction, recycling and resource conservation. Since the program’s inception, JUNK! has motivated more than 100,000 teachers and students throughout Alberta with the recycling, reducing, reusing and rethinking message.

Evergreen also believes in creating dynamic partnerships within communities and have developed alliances with the City of Calgary Waste & Recycling Services, TD Friends of the Environment and Dow Chemical. These like-minded partnerships have enabled us to reach urban and rural students throughout Alberta.

Evergreen Theatre believes that inspiring today’s youth will grow tomorrow’s sustainable communities.

Generating more than three million scrap tires annually used to create a major problem. Since tires are made of vulcanized rubber they don’t break down easily and were filling landfill sites creating potential environmental hazards.

In 1992, the Tire Recycling Board was created and instituted a $4 surcharge on tire purchases to cover the costs of recycling them. Four years later the board became the Tire Recycling Management Association of Alberta, spearheaded by a board of broad stakeholder interests. The mandate was to develop recycling opportunities and technologies.

The board continues to pursue research and development through new technologies  such as rubberized asphalt and devulcanization.

Alberta communities have also benefited from recycled tires through Municipal Demonstration programs that fund the cost of putting recycled tire products into municipal and community projects. This way communities can see the end use of the recycled material and realize the benefits of their recycling efforts.”

The ultimate proof of the success of Alberta’s tire recycling program is that the stockpile of 23 million tires that had languished in Alberta landfills is gone. Alberta’s tire recycling program remains on track and able to deal with the three million tires annually discarded in the province.

Alberta’s tire recycling program is increasingly recognized as one of the best tire-recycling program in Canada and around the world.

It is well-recognized that education and promotion are key to the success of any recycling initiative. Unfortunately, high-quality educational messaging is not as common as would be ideal.

This year did see an example of high-quality recycling messaging delivered through the most popular public media – television. These high-quality ads contrasted natural and pastoral scenes with the same locations scattered with empty milk containers. These ads were delivered in a highly professional manner, and follow-up research indicated a high level of recognition by the general public. Since the inception of its recycling program, the Alberta Dairy Council has spent in excess of $1 million on communication and education initiatives, showing their commitment to this aspect of their program.

Increased promotion of recycling initiatives in the public media will serve to raise the profile of recycling and other waste reduction measures among the general public. The quality advertising presented by the Alberta Dairy Council Milk Container Recycling Program will in turn raise awareness of a broader range of recycling initiatives, as well.

On May 10, 2003, the City of Calgary set a new record for electronic waste collected in a single day, diverting over 220,000 kgs of e-waste from landfill sites. In total, 8000 Calgarians were serviced in less than 6 hours.

In the short term, toxic material found in e-waste will be diverted from landfill sites and fully recycled, including thousands of pounds of lead, contained in CRTs. In the long term, this pilot project will serve to help the City and other municipalities across Canada to understand what the costs and logistics required for a proper electronics recycling program entail.

This event came about as a result of the dedication and hard work of Mike Saley, an Engineer in Strategic Planning & Design for Calgary’s Waste & Recycling Services. It was Mike that approached MAXUS about such a program and together, the two organizations worked for almost a year to make the event a reality.

The progressive action taken by the City of Calgary in setting up this program speaks to the real commitment the City has towards improving environmental stewardship on a municipal level. It also speaks to progressive thought with regards to Public/Private Partnerships and the role we all play (citizens, governments and the private sector) in reducing our overall environmental footprint.

The event also extended beyond electronics, with health and safety and event “greening” being at the top of mind throughout the entire planning process.

Helen Rice was a founding member of the Peace Region Waste Reduction Action Committee and its first Chair. The Action Committee was established in the late 1980’s and continues to operate today. Helen is still a member of its Board of Directors.

Helen was also a founding member and the first Chair of Northern Coordinated Action For Recycling Enterprises (Northern CARE). During Northern CARE’s ten years of existence, she was the Chair for five years and a Board Member for the past two.

As the Chair of Northern CARE Helen played a very important leadership role in establishing programs to collect recyclable waste materials such as scrap tires, computers and white goods. In the case of scrap tires, approximately 750,000 were collected as part of this Northern CARE initiative.

The Regional Recycling Program that was established in the Peace Region and still successfully operating today was advanced and accepted by northwest municipalities through the many efforts of Helen Rice. Her dedication, commitment and leadership in the establishment of this Program were critical to its success. Today, the Program has been responsible for the diversion of significant amounts of waste from landfills in the region.

As the Deputy Mayor and Councillor with the City of Grande Prairie, Helen has been involved in a number of recycling, waste reduction and waste management system programs, such the development of the City’s Eco-Centre, residential waste pick-up and a cardboard collection system.

Helen has provided direction for Northern CARE’s program related to the establishment of school-based recycling programs and bin collection facilities, especially in the Grande Prairie Region.

Helen has made numerous presentations to organizations in Alberta and the rest of Canada regarding the work of Northern CARE, the challenges of recycling and the opportunities to develop recycling initiatives in Northern Alberta.

In many ways, Helen has been instrumental in advancing recycling and waste reduction in Northern Alberta through her excellent leadership and dedication to effective waste management.