Bottle depot processes 1.2 million containers in only six months
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Updated: September 15, 2009 12:03 PM
After nearly a year in business, and six months with an Encorp contract, the local bottle depot, Happyface Recycling, run by Wendyle and Bill Jones, has surpassed the one million mark in containers recycled.
“We’ve done 1.2 million in five months,” says Wendyle. “If you make the area population 4,000, in a year we’re going to have 500 containers for every man, woman and child in the area.”
A recent article published in the Arrow Lakes News on August 26, titled ‘RDCK recycling trails behind provincial average’, mentions the average in the RDCK to be 226 containers returned per person, while the provincial average is 242. With the estimate of 4,000 people, Wendyle and Bill have already surpassed both averages at 300.
“For a depot that’s only been around not even a year, I was really impressed,” says Encorp’s Krystin Beck, regional operations manager for the Kootenays and southern B.C. She says the way the operators handle their customers and their knowledge of containers, the business and the industry itself was very impressive. “They are very well organized, they’re standards are very high in dealing with customers, handling of the containers, storing of the containers, which is what is really involved with running a bottle depot.”
She says the provincial average for the percentage of people who recycle is about 77 per cent, while with the numbers showing locally, she believes the percentage for the people in Nakusp and within a 100 kilometre radius is in the high 80s.
“We may be the best in the province,” says Wendyle.
Beck says the important thing about the local depot is that Wendyle and Bill approach the depot not only from a recycling point of view, but from a retail and customer service business. In dealing with customers and the exchange of money, she says they have balanced the need for good service and the ability to recycle efficiently.
“They just handle themselves very professionally and take it seriously, not just as a business, but the seriousness of what it does to the environment when you don’t recycle,” says Beck. “I could clearly see them passing that information on to their customers.”
She says surpassing 1.2 million containers is astounding for this area, and while the summer season is generally busier with more people outside enjoying the weather and drinking more, with the says Encorp is heavily considering setting up the depot in Nakusp to deal with electronics as well.
Wendyle says so far this summer, they’ve been processing roughly 4,000 beer cans every day they are open, and aside from recycling, they have also set up different services at the site to start attacking the issue of recycling from a different perspective. Now, if any residents are taking anything to the dump that may still work, Wendyle says to drop it off at the depot and it will be sold cheap. He calls this new avenue ‘The Purveyor of Things’.
“There are four winners,” he says. “The first winner is the person who dropped it off and saves money when going to the dump. I’m the second winner because, I got something for nothing and sold it. The third winner is the person who bought it because they got a dryer for $20 that works. The fourth person to win is all of us because we kept it out of the landfill.”
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