ROBERT BARRON CITIZEN
The Bings Creek Recycling Centre will soon see investments in upgrades to its security and energy.
The board of the Cowichan Valley Regional District, which owns and operates the centre on Drinkwater Road, decided recently to spend up to $25,000 on security cameras at the site, and to borrow up to $129,000 for energy-efficient lights and heat controls, and for a solar-energy project.
Tauseef Waraich, the CVRD’s manager of recycling and waste management, said the facility has been having problems with people going through or over its fences.
He said, as well as their intent to steal valuable recyclable items, the district’s water department also keeps trucks on the site with tools in them, and there have been a number of thefts of those tools recently, as well as cases in which people siphoned gas from the vehicles.
“We do have security guards at the site, but they are not there 24/7 so we are investing in cameras to help with security,” Wariach said.
Waraich said an energy audit that was conducted in 2014 identified a number of areas in the CVRD where savings, in both energy and money, could be made.
He said the installation of energy-efficient lights and smart detectors on heat controls at the recycling centre are among the investments to be made by the CVRD, and the board has allowed the borrowing of up to $74,000 to pay for the upgrades.
“We are also borrowing up to $55,000 for our Bings Creek solar photovoltaic demonstration project, which involves placing solar panels on the recycling buildings to provide energy,” Waraich said.