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Hinton Wood Products, a division of West Frasers Mills Ltd.
| Category
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Business |
| Status
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Nomination |
| Year
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2009 |
| Nominee
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Hinton Wood Products, a division of West Frasers Mills Ltd. |
| Project
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Willow Road/Robb Road Clean-up Project |
| Summary Of Activity
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The Willow Road and the Robb Road are two major industrial roads, which feed into Hinton from the north and the south. They are heavily used by the oil and gas, and forest industries. In 2008, Hinton Wood Products (HWP) planned and implemented a massive clean-up of these two road systems. This involved the coordination of more than 200 volunteers from over 45 different companies in the clean-up of approximately 326 kilometres of ditch line. The result was the removal of six gravel trucks full of garbage (approximately 20 tons), 8 840 pounds of recyclable metal and a mountain of bottles and cans worth over $1 100, which were donated to the local Boys & Girls Club. Hinton Wood Products has organized this road clean-up twice in the last two years. |
| Barriers/Challenges To Success
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Simply getting the project started was daunting. At times, the number of oil and gas related companies working on HWP's Forest Management Area can be over 100. Finding the contact information for each company and then convincing companies to donate time, employees or both to clean-up a road system was challenging. However, HWP found that as more companies came on board, it became easier to recruit others. Eventually more volunteers were recruited than needed, which led to extending the scope of the project by adding additional roads.
The weather proved to be a major challenge. The timing of the event is critical; it needs to be held at a time of year before most herbaceous plants and deciduous trees have flushed, because once this vegetation has leafed out, it becomes very difficult to find and pick-up litter. Also, it needs to be held at a time of the year when the energy activity is slow--typically around spring break-up. The first clean-up event (in 2007) was held in early May, but had to be rescheduled on the day of the event, due to four inches of fresh snow. Learning from this mistake, HWP scheduled the 2008 event for May 28th - still early enough that litter was not being hidden by vegetation, but late enough that the chance of a spring snow storm was significantly reduced.
The overall coordination of the event was challenging. The volunteers were spread out over a large area, with limited phone and radio coverage. The biggest issue HWP faced was not having enough garbage receptacles in place in time - in a few instances, crews were finished cleaning up their sections of road before garbage bins were in place, so they ended up having to bring their garbage directly to the landfill. For future events, HWP would ensure all garbage bins are in place at the beginning of the day, as well as allocate more personnel to act as overall trouble-shooters in order to address any minor problems that might arise.
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| Contact
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Mr. Aaron Jones
Stewardship/Public Affairs Coordinator
Hinton Wood Products
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756 Switzer Drive
Hinton, AB T7V 0A2
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| Telephone |
780-865-8559 |
| Fax |
780-865-8165 |
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Contact through Email
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http://www.westfraser.com/hintonforestry
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