Staff photo by Lizz Bottrell
Darcy Brickley loves spending his time oar whacking at SARCAN.

By Lizz Bottrell
Citizen Staff

Reduce, reuse, recycle. Sound familiar? Teachers hammered this concept into students’ heads for years. They still do - and for good reason. As that scary global warming concept continues to creep into the masses, more people need to do their own part to help combat this near-crisis.

But what can one little person do? Support SARCAN.

SARCAN collects and recycles non-refillable containers in Saskatchewan. More recently, they transitioned into also accepting waste electronics. This includes computers, printers, keyboards and mice, laptops, monitors, and televisions. In fact, since the Saskatchewan Waste Electronic Equipment Program’s (SWEEP) inception just over a year ago, SARCAN’s collected over three million pounds of waste electronics and disposed of them in an environmentally responsible manner.

Electronics contain a cocktail of toxic heavy metals, which is why people should donate or recycle their computers before they become obsolete. Now that SARCAN collects the old electronics right in Kipling, it becomes easier for people to recycle those old computers instead of throwing them into a landfill.

For those unfamiliar with SARCAN, they provide volunteer-based work for persons with disabilities, who otherwise may not have any work at all. This work keeps them busy, providing them a great sense of pride. SARCAN also employs a number of other people to over-see the day-to-day operations at each location.

Tony Brule supervises the SARCAN location in Kipling. Brule and one other employee, Rick Martens, receive pay from SARCAN. All other people working at the recycling depot work on a volunteer basis.

Darcy Brickley spends a lot of his time at SARCAN. He does what they call oar whacking. This process squishes the plastic bottles down to a smaller size for transportation. He takes a great pride in his job.

Oar whacking isn’t the only thing going on inside SARCAN. The whole collection process is actually quite impressive. “We sort everything as it comes in,” says Brule. They collect anything a person pays deposit on when it’s purchased at a store. This includes aluminum cans, P.E.T plastic bottles, glass bottles, and juice boxes and containers. The refunds for these range from five cents for juice boxes and containers to 40 cents for large glass bottles. SARCAN also accepts refillable beer bottles, refunding four cents a bottle. People can also bring their plastic milk jugs and paper milk cartons for SARCAN to recycle, but no refund is given.

The single biggest recycled product for SARCAN is the aluminum can. “These aluminum cans, once we ship them to Regina, Regina bales them up then they’re shipped to Kentucky,” said Brule. “Within six weeks these cans are back on the shelves again. We do over a million a year [at the Kipling depot]. This year we’re about 140,000 right now.”

Although the aluminum can has a quick turnaround, clear glass ends up in one of the most unique places in the end. “All this clear glass goes to Regina first. They break it up and from Regina it is shipped to Moose Jaw, it’s refined more. That is what’s on your paint on your highways that reflects at night,” said Brule.

Beer bottles are also recycled through SARCAN - but only the brown ones. Keep in mind though, if a person wants to recycle the clear or green beer bottles, he or she can do so at the depot and receive 20 cents, which is more than the regular four cent deposit for beer bottles, because the bottles would be sent out with the clear or coloured glass.

SARCAN also accepts paint cans. “What we do is when they come in, I go through it,” said Brule. “When I ship this to Regina, the oil based paint, they take the oil out of it and then the rest of the paint, like the latex, they make new paint out of it. Then it’s shipped to overseas countries where they need them.”

At SARCAN, the persons with disabilities job share to get the work done. In the morning, Andrew Dixon will do the oar whacking, then in the afternoon, Brickley takes over. “They job share because eight hours is too much,” said Brule.

“They take pride in what they do. Teresa, if I told her to work seven hours, she would.” They take so much pride in what they do, that if they are sick for an extended amount of time, they call in every day to make sure everything is running smoothly. It’s hard for them not to be able to be there when they are sick.