New SARCAN Recycling depot opens in Harbour Landing

New SARCAN in Harbour Landing WATCH: For Harbour Landing residents, a trip to SARCAN once meant a drive to another neighbourhood, but not anymore. Colton Wiens explains.

REGINA — ​A new SARCAN Recycling depot is opening its doors in Harbour Landing.

The new location is open Monday to Saturday, from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. at 5000 Parliament Ave. It’s 25 per cent larger than the depot it replaced on Fleury Street, with more space and chutes.

“All of the neighbourhoods will be very close to a SARCAN now as opposed to before where some of them were a little bit bunched up and there wasn’t a whole lot of options for everybody out here in this neighbourhood,” Nolan Hubbard-Richards, SARCAN Recycling Communications and Culture Coordinator said.

The capacity of the new location is expanded to serve bulk drop offs. It also features, automatic sliding doors to make it more accessible and a separate drop and go room with two customer terminals.

“Folks coming in to recycle, little bit easier to manage your way in with a couple of bigger bags,” Hubbard-Richards said. “We have two lines going into the Drop & Go now, as opposed to our other locations that only have a single stream going in.”

The new location will be operated by Harvest Community Inc., which provides employment opportunities for adults with intellectual disabilities and already operates four of the five SARCAN depots in Regina. It’s expected to employ about 20 to 25 people.

“In the summer months we typically employ more people and bring in summer students and things like that, because we have much higher volumes,” Nadine Zettl, Harvest Community Inc. Executive said.

Hubbard-Richards said COVID-19 restrictions led to a backlog of returns. It resulted in SARCAN seeing the highest number of returns in its history during July, August and September respectively.

According to SARCAN, over 100,000,000 beverage containers pass through Regina’s SARCAN depots every year, with 433,000 customers being served.