Harbour Grace waste recovery site to close temporarily for upgrades

By Olivia Bradbury / Local Journalism Initiative Reporter

The Harbour Grace Waste Recovery Facility will close for a little over three weeks starting next month to allow for upgrades to be made to the site.

Harbour Construction will undertake the $110,000 project, with the work running from November 9 to December 2.

The upgrades at Harbour Grace will be the fourth Eastern Regional Service Board facility to get such improvements this year with work already completed at the Fox Harbour, Bay Bulls, and Whitbourne facilities.

ERSB chairman Stephen Tessier noted that last year the Harbour Grace location was the busiest out of all 10 of the ERSB’s recovery facilities with 10,205 visitors in total.

Tessier said not much work has been done on the Harbour Grace Waste Recovery Facility since it opened, aside from some maintenance for wear and tear. The upcoming project will include the realignment of some of the facility’s berms, which are used for sorting bulk materials. 

“So we’re going to be realigning some of them and building those back up again because, over the years, some of the banks have settled down a bit, so we’re going to make those higher again,” said Tessier. 

Netting is also going to be added to help catch lighter debris such as insulation and plastic from blowing around, he said.

“The upgrades will redesign the site layout to make operations more efficient for both residential users dropping off materials and for ERSB staff collecting materials with grapple trucks for transport to the Robin Hood Bay Landfill, where all waste from the Eastern region is ultimately processed,” added the ERSB’s communications coordinator, will Hilliard. “This means ERSB’s waste recovery facilities are not traditional landfills or ‘dump’ sites.”

The ERSB also has plans to install cameras at the Harbour Grace facility. This will improve safety, but it can also be used to monitor any activity after hours. The facility has experienced illegal dumping and trespassing scavengers in the past. The facility’s previous cameras were taken and destroyed by trespassers. Tessier pointed out the cameras are also helpful in pinpointing where materials are blowing so that staff can know where to put netting.

The upgrades to the Harbour Grace Waste Recovery Facility are a $110,000 project, the contract for which has been awarded to Harbour Construction. 

The facility is expected to reopen at 12:00 Noon on December 2.