It's still a wait and see game for recycling in Sault North.
Funding for recycling, approved by citizens of unorganized townships north of Sault Ste. Marie, can not begin flowing until the spring of 2016.
Without that funding, GT Waste, the company which has performed recycling since 2007 for the townships in an area which covers 500 kilometres, can not continue recycling operations at the Havilland Waste Disposal Site (WDS).
GT Waste ceased recycling June 1.
Greg Long, GT Waste owner and operator, told SooToday he is looking at laying off staff as early as Monday.
"If I'm not using the recycling equipment (which Long purchased and installed at the Havilland site) then I have no need for the employees that run it."
Could that mean GT Waste, meanwhile, is picking up recyclable material along with regular curbside garbage and disposing of it at the Havilland site, shortening the landfill's lifespan?
"I'm going to assume we're taking the recyclables along with it (in the garbage bags put out by area residents)…if people are putting it in with their garbage there's not a whole lot I can do about that."
"We have noticed a huge increase in volume," Long said.
"We could increase the cost (and add to what residents are already paying for regular garbage pickup in order to keep recycling) but the cost would be so astronomical people wouldn't pay it."
"It would be a paperwork nightmare," Long said.
Meanwhile, Holly Hughes, Sault North Waste Management Council (SNWMC) president, and Michael Mantha, Algoma-Manitoulin MPP, have been lobbying the provincial government for bridge funding to operate Sault North recycling until taxpayer funding kicks in next spring, but with no success.
Previous funding envelopes for Sault North recycling from the province and the private sector are no longer available.
The Sault North Waste Management Council is appreciative of help received from Northside Volkswagen and the Echo Foundation (an environmental group) in the past, Hughes said, speaking to SooToday earlier this week.
However, private sector partners cannot provide continual core funding for the program.
Hughes said it would be an important and positive precedent-setting move to get bridge funding from the province because "we're the only rural unincorporated township doing curbside recycling in Ontario, ever."
"It's odd to me they haven't been able to get that money from the provincial government," Long said.
"We have a really super, unique situation…the people came out and voted in droves, people said we want the government to take our money and pay for recycling, and that's unheard of."
"You would think the Ontario government would say this is unique, these people want it and they're willing to pay for it, let's do it, but they're not," Long said.
Long said he is reluctant to lobby the government along with Hughes and Mantha.
"I'd be afraid to look like a contractor just trying to get money."
"I've been in contact with the Ministry of Natural Resources, the Ministry of Northern Development and Mines, the Ministry of the Environment and the Ministry of Municipal Affairs and Housing…myself, the Goulais River Local Services Board, and the Sault North Waste Management Council have all been working hard to get bridge funding," Mantha said.
"We have not received a response..we're not looking for a lot of money, we're looking for between $40,000 to $50,000, so if these four ministries could get together and free up about $8,500 apiece we would have the bridge funding we need to keep the recycling program in the Sault North area going and maintain the four recycling jobs that are there."
"It's frustrating…I don't have an answer (for the government's lack of response)" Mantha said.
All that his office has received, Mantha said, is a message from the MNR head office indicating staff have been instructed to provide Mantha with an "update."
