THUNDER BAY - Anyone with unwanted electronic devices sitting at home or old tires out in the yard once again had an opportunity to dispose of these potentially hazardous materials properly.
On Saturday from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m., EcoSuperior Environmental Programs along with the Thunder Bay OLG Casino, held the annual e-waste and tire collection at the Casino parking lot.
“This is really important and it’s great to see such a great turnout,” said Alan Forbes, cage shift manager at the Thunder Bay OLG Casino. “People are hanging on to their electronics. They know they can’t just take them to the dump. And also tires. We’ve had a few trucks come in just loaded with tires and people know they can’t just throw them in the dump or in the bush.”
The free e-waste and tire collection has been held for the last seven years and according to Forbes, last year more than 400 people brought in close to 25,000 pounds of electronic waste and more than 600 tires.
There was a steady stream of people to drop of tires and old electronic devices on Saturday and Forbes said every year it is very busy and very successful.
The annual collection started seven years ago when the OLG Casino, along with Pack Pros Plus were part of a Zero Waste Action Team.
“Talking through the Zero Waste Action Committee we decided to try an e-waste collection here and it was a phenomenal success,” Forbes said, “Once we saw that we knew it had to be an annual thing.”
According to Shannon Costigan, program coordinator with EcoSuperior, disposing of e-waste improperly can be very harmful to the environment.
“This event today is really important,” she said. “Electronics contain a lot of hazardous materials that shouldn’t be going into our landfill sites. So it’s important to provide the public with an opportunity to drop off their electronics so they can be managed properly.”
All the electronics collected are shipped to a licensed recycler in Ontario where they are dismantled, the valuable materials recovered and reused, and the hazardous materials managed by waste disposal teams.
Tires are recycled by the Ontario Stewardship program and converted into other materials.
According to Forbes, all the money earned from the waste collected goes right back into the community.
“Both the Ontario Electronic Stewardship and the Ontario Tire Stewardship pay us for what we collect today and that will go straight to EcoSuperior,” Forbes said.
