THE CORPORATION OF THE CITY OF PORT COQUITLAM
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The system of newspaper collection in use prior to the changeover
to two-man garbage crews produced a number of problems.

1. The racks are not large enough for consistent paper collection.
Many times the racks would fill up before the truck was finished with his route.
In some cases, if a few householders saved their paper for awhile and then put
it out, the racks could be filled up from those bcations and the remainder of
the paper left on the street would have to be thrown into the truck to be

dumped.

2. The racks are in the wrong place on the vehicle and are incon-
venient to open. It would be necessary to hold the cover up with one hand
while the paper was thrown in with the other hand. This created problems if
the paper was bundled poorly or in heavy bundles.

3. Because the paper was often poorly bundled or left loose,
it would blow.around in the racks and eventually end up on the street as the
truck moved along.

4. It takes about as much time to walk around to the racks with
a small bundle of paper as it takes to dump three cans of garbage. Under the
old garbage collection system where the men received overtime payment if they
worked longer than an eight hour day, the time taken to separate the paper
was not very important. However, as the men are now paid for overtime only
if they pick up more than a certain weight, the extra time that it takes to
load paper is very important. .

In view of the above problems, the Committee considered. whether
it might not be more beneficial to the City to have some private interest
pick up the paper. Accordingly, discussion was initiated with a firm called.
New Life Recycling which operates a newspaper collection system in North
Vancouver. Copies of a proposal fron this firm have been distributed separ-
ately to members of Council. The service provided through this proposal
would certainly meet Council's objective of encouraging conservation and
recycling in the City without having to face the cost of including it with
our own collection.

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This item is on the agenda for discussion in order to determine
Council's views on this alternative method and on whether the City would be
prepared to provide some advertising to encourage people to participate.
If this approach is. acceptable to Council, the Committee would pursue the
matter further and come up with specific recommendations.

ITEM III

Re: Portable Traffic Signals for Construction

A portable traffic signal supplied by Fred West was tested on
two construction projects this fall in order to determine the desirab: lity
of the City owning such portable signals. It was determined that sucn a
system would be very useful in our construction process, particularly on
large projects on busy roads. Wowever, the signals provided by Fred West
turned out to be unsuitable £rom several points of view. Fred West's signal

[3.005