Tim's launches recycling project

“We’ve had a lot of positive feedback,” he said during a session with local media at the Tim Hortons on Starrs Road. “Without question, there are going to be some challenges,” he said, likening those challenges to the situation many people probably faced in the early stages of their own recycling efforts, when they were learning how to sort through everything and trying to make sure that it all went to the right place. “We’ve received some really good initial results (with the new program),” he said.

Yarmouth is the site of a pilot project whereby Tim Hortons coffee cups are accepted as recyclable paper products. “It’s no surprise that Yarmouth was chosen as the test for this,” Arenburg told reporters and others on hand for Wednesday’s gathering. “Yarmouth is known as a leader in recycling.”

One of the things Arenburg wanted to stress was that the restaurant is emulating what people do at home by using the four-stream separation system – paper products, recyclables (including coffee cup lids), organics and garbage – a point cited too by Gus Green, general manager of Waste Check, the area’s solid waste authority and another of the partners in the Tim Hortons project. “We’re very thrilled that they’ve made the project resemble what we do at home,” Green said. “That makes it very easy for us from an educational perspective and it should make it, hopefully, easy for the citizens as well.”

Also on hand for the media briefing was Dwight Whynot of Scotia Recycling, which will process the Tim Horton’s cups, although he noted during an interview that other restaurant items – cup lids, paper trays, paper bags etc. – are recyclable too and so people should be sorting them accordingly, whether at home or at the restaurant. “That’s the real message that we want to get out,” he said.

Yarmouth Mayor Charles Crosby, another of the day’s speakers, referring to the Tim Hortons initiative and those involved in the project, said, “We’re very honoured and very pleased that you’re doing this.”

Like other speakers, he cited the Yarmouth area’s leadership role in recycling.

Discussing the project outside his Starrs Road store after the formal remarks were over, Arenburg said, “When you do anything, you always worry about how it’s going to turn out, but the response from the customers has been very good.”

The project is called Making a Difference – One Cup At a Time. “Like anything, you need to test it in the market and get the bugs out of it and we’ve learned some lessons already in the first two days,” Arenburg said.