The Town of Provost is being applauded for its recent recycling efforts and in particular a composting program.

Executive director of the Recycling Council of Alberta, Christina Seidel says that they did not know what Provost was doing until they were at an Alberta Urban Municipalities Association (AUMA) convention in Calgary the end of September.

Councillor Kim Larson, who has been pushing the project took slides of the recycling and compositing bins in Provost to that conference where he met Seidel.

The Town of Provost went from hauling garbage in a town-owned operation to switching to a private collection company on October 1, 1998 when a door-to-door blue box operation was also set up. Blue boxes can contain items like paper, cardboard and some plastic materials like jugs. Provost supplied special bins at the hall in January 1997 and began a composting operation in May 1999.

Seidel spoke to The News while she was travelling down Highway 2 and she said that after learning what Provost had done she invited Larson to speak at the Recycling Council of Alberta’s conference October 18 to 20 at Lake Louise.

“Provost is a great example of a town that faced unique challenges because it is so far away from markets.” Despite the small size of the community, the non-profit recycling council was impressed because of the very comprehensive program.

“I hope that the town inspires other communities to take on similar initiatives” adds Seidel. The town “jumped in with both feet” wanting to divert as much as possible from their waste stream.

Larson says that he told up to 150 delegates at the Lake Louse convention of problems faced but added overall it has been a success. He said that there were delegates from Toronto, Calgary and Edmonton and notes that Calgary does not have a door to door recycling pick up. Larson says that Provost is one of the few places that does composting and is one of the leaders of a town this size in Alberta—and Seidel agrees.

There are a variety of recycling programs across Alberta and different communities approach problems in a variety of ways. Composting, says Seidel is not very common yet but it “really makes a big difference” in reducing the amount of material going into a landfill. And that’s showing up in numbers at the Provost landfill site says the councillor: “weights are down from the town garbage.” Larson adds that Hughenden did some recycling, then stopped—but will soon start again because they saw the volume of their garbage going up into the dumping grounds.

Seidel also points out during the interview that “Kim (Larson) is an elected official. He has really shown some courage to drive this program and we do not often see that level of commitment and drive from an elected official. Politicians are often dragged along, kicking and screaming. That shows real leadership.”

She predicts the program will evolve further in a few years. “You’ve been doing so much so quickly. I wouldn’t be in a big hurry to do more.”

Larson however has met some people who recycle jars and other glass materials and he’s getting some material sent to him about that.

The Town of Provost, is now a member of the Recycling Council of Alberta.

Provost residents have a limit of three bags of garbage per week for pick-up.