The busiest shopping time is here and retailers' shelves are overflowing with this season's hottest gift items for friends and family. The holiday season usually also means more cardboard boxes and packaging is arriving daily to all the retailers at your local shopping centre. The remains of all these deliveries do pile up.
This year, Coquitlam Centre is again hard at work to promote having a very "Green Christmas" to their customers and tenants, actively working within the Centre's unique recycling programs to ensure the influx of recyclable materials entering the building are handled responsibly. In April, Coquitlam Centre implemented significantly enhanced and expanded recycling programs. As the flagship shopping centre of Morguard Investments Limited in B.C., Coquitlam Centre is using the Cascades Recovery Inc.'s Recovery PLUS program; a customized material recovery program that provides a comprehensive approach to diverting the centre's discarded materials.
In 2010, Coquitlam Centre had only a few recycling programs in place. Today, there are over 14 different categories of materials in the program, including cardboard, office paper, hard and soft plastic, plastic hangers, light bulbs, bottles, cans and many more categories now being recovered.
"We are proud of our shopping centre's sustainability efforts." says Ken Petherick, operations manager for Coquitlam Centre. "We believe this year our shopping centre will have one of our greenest Christmas' ever, which is something all our shoppers and tenants feel proud to be a part of."
From April through to October, the shopping centre has recycled an additional 36.82 metric tonnes of materials versus over the same period last year. In doing so, the centre helped save the equivalent weight of 36,820 pairs of jeans from going into the landfill. "We are very pleased with the early results but we know there is still room for more improvement" added Petherick.
Coquitlam Centre plans to communicate the results of its 2011 "Green Christmas" recycling program on the centre's website in the early 2012. To view the recycling results and for more information about Coquitlam Centre's programs and events, visit www.coquitlamcentre.com
