Mayor introduces City’s new Director of Solid Waste Services and promotes a green holiday season

Summary: Today, Mayor Larry O’Brien introduced the new Director of Solid Waste Services, Albert Shamess, and promoted sound environmental practices over the holiday season.

Today, Mayor Larry O’Brien introduced the new Director of Solid Waste Services, Albert Shamess, and promoted sound environmental practices over the holiday season.

“With a little smart planning, every resident can significantly reduce the amount of waste their family sends to local landfills,” said Mayor O’Brien.

The City is asking residents to resist the urge to buy unnecessary or disposable products, and to make better use of the City's recycling programs, such as blue and black-box recycling, Take it Back! program, and household hazardous waste depots. One idea to consider is to use popcorn as packing material when shipping gifts. Popcorn can be composted after it’s been used, unlike traditional polystyrene packaging that is non-biodegradable.

“During this holiday season, there are a number of ways you can give the gift of a greener Ottawa to your family and community,” said Albert Shamess. “By simply using reusable boxes, bags, baskets and tins to wrap our gifts instead of one-time-use wrapping paper, we can reduce our waste. For everything that’s left over; remember to recycle cardboard boxes, put paper gift wrap and greeting cards in your black box, and place foil wrapping paper, bows and ribbons in your regular garbage, as they cannot be recycled.”

Albert Shamess, who started at the City on December 3, 2007, has 26 years of professional management, project management and operational experience in solid waste services, in both the public and private sectors. Most recently, he has been working on the development of waste management systems across Canada, including the cities of Halifax and Sydney Nova Scotia, and Saint John, New Brunswick and the Province of Newfoundland and Labrador.

After the holidays, the City will be collecting and composting cut Christmas trees. This will reduce waste going to landfills and promotes sound environmental practices. Trees will be collected during the week of January 14 to 18, 2008 (on your regular garbage day). To be certain your tree is collected and composted, please ensure it’s not wrapped in a plastic bag and that all decorations have been removed when you place it at the curb.

In order to avoid problems with collection or snow removal operations, residents should only place Christmas trees at the curb the night before their scheduled collection day. The collection calendar is available on the City’s Web site atottawa.ca.

A healthy environment is a year-round gift you can give to your family and future generations. The City of Ottawa wishes you a happy, safe and green holiday season.

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