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Plant to process recycled plastic proposed for Industrial Parkway North


By Brock Weir

Have you ever wondered where your empty plastic containers go after you put them in your curbside blue box? Soon, if one company gets its way, the answer might be pretty close at hand.

Council signed off on the technical aspects of a proposal from Pnewko Brothers Ltd. To operate a waste disposal site for 226 Industrial Parkway North last week. According to the report before Council from Marco Ramunno, Aurora's Director of Planning, the company has submitted plans with the province to operate the site to process and grind empty plastic containers on site before they are shipped elsewhere.

“The application, if approved, will permit the transfer and processing of…non-hazardous municipal waste, industrial, commercial and institutional recycling…plastics,” said Mr. Ramunno. “The proposal submitted to the Ministry of the Environment (MOE) is for a new Environmental Compliance Approval (Waste Disposal Site) for the use and operation of a waste disposal site with a total area of 0.2 hectares, to be used for the transfer and processing of up to 30 tonnes per day of non-hazardous, solid municipal waste, industrial, commercial and institutional recycling plastics.

“The total amount of waste and processing materials stored at the site will not exceed 150 tonnes at any one time. The processes to be used entail screening and grinding of plastics.”

The report goes on to note that the plant will be in operation between the hours of 6 a.m. and 10 p.m., Monday through Saturday, will provide services to the Province, and the planned operations of the facility fall within existing municipal bylaws.

Council's role in this application was little more than to provide comment to the Minister of the Environment on the plan's compliance with municipal bylaws on noise and hours of operation.

“Council is not the approval authority, but we have been asked to comment on it,” said Mr. Ramunno, responding to questions from Councillor Wendy Gaertner on process. “We thought it was prudent to bring this forward to let Council know we had the application and we are making a comment that the waste disposal site be limited solely to the processing and grinding of plastic containers.”

While Council's authority in the matter was limited, Aurora CAO Neil Garbe advised that the regulated period for Council to make comment on the plan ends December 6, and that is why it hit Council when it did. Nevertheless, Councillor Gaertner was the one vote against the recommendation, arguing that now was not the time to give the plan the green light.

“I think it would be more appropriate for the next Council to approve this because if there are any issues with this, it is going to be the next Council to deal with this, including noise and other issues,” she said. “The other reason I would like this to be delayed is I see there is public information that is going to be coming in, but it won't be coming in now. Why wouldn't we wait to have the public's comments before we make a decision?

“As a member of Council, I would like to know what those comments are before I go forward with this, so I will have to vote against it.”
Excerpt: Have you ever wondered where your empty plastic containers go after you put them in your curbside blue box? Soon, if one company gets its way, the answer might be pretty close at hand.
Post date: 2014-12-03 16:51:57
Post date GMT: 2014-12-03 21:51:57
Post modified date: 2014-12-17 15:18:52
Post modified date GMT: 2014-12-17 20:18:52
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