Thursday October 2, 2014 – 11am
Posted Oct 2, 2014 02:31:37 PM.
This article is more than 5 years old.
11:00- Ebola preparations in Canada
Ian Campbell, 660News and 570News Reporter
Health officials say Canada may decide to place doses of an experimental Ebola vaccine in designated hospitals. Dr. Gregory Taylor, Canada’s chief public health officer says the vaccine could be quickly used if health-care workers had any risky exposures. A number of facilities across Canada have been chosen to treat Ebola cases should the deadly disease arrive here. Taylor said that includes one that will care for Canadian responders if any become infected in an Ebola zone. Taylor, speaking in Banff, Alberta here the country’s health ministers are meeting, did not mention the hospital by name, but it is Toronto Western. The vaccine, created by researchers at Canada’s National Microbiology Laboratory in Winnipeg, is still experimental. Meanwhile, Thomas Eric Duncan, the man in a Dallas hospital being treated for Ebola, remains in isolation in serious but stable condition. Ebola is believed to have sickened more than 71-hundred people in West Africa and killed more than 33-hundred, according to the World Health Organization. Liberia is one of the three hardest-hit countries in the epidemic, along with Sierra Leone and Guinea.
11:30- Green bin losses reach $1.3-million
Cari Howard, Project Manager & Communications Lead, Waste Management Programs for Region of Waterloo
Regional council has reached a bitter milestone – the first $1.3 million it has lost on green bins. Council lost the money over 12 months, sending less than half the kitchen scraps it agreed to supply to a composting facility built by the City of Guelph. “In the overall scheme of the regional budget, it’s not a huge amount, but it’s still a significant amount,” Regional Chair Ken Seiling said. The Region expects to lose another $1.3 million in the next 12 months as residents are putting less waste into green bins while council moves deeper into a contract to compost. Council agreed to pay Guelph to compost 20,000 tonnes a year, but estimates sending only 8,870 tonnes. In Year 2, regional government expects to send 9,000 tonnes. Taxpayers are losing because council still has to pay Guelph to compost 11,000 tonnes not collected or sent, at a cost that edges up this month to $120 per tonne. Guelph defends the contract, after building a $32-million facility at a size to handle Waterloo Region waste. Residents find green bins messy and inconvenient. Only 15 to 35 per cent of local houses put them at the curb. It’s estimated the bins collect only 19 per cent of waste that could be composted. Green bins shattered in extreme cold last winter, persuading some people to give up even though broken bins are replaced for free. “If it’s something you’re not all that keen on anyway, and you have any easy excuse to stop, a broken bin is a great excuse to stop,” said Howard, a project manager in regional waste management. Green bins collected 9,521 tonnes in 2011, the first full year. Collection dropped in 2012 and again in 2013 to 8,994 tonnes. For this year the estimate is 9,000 tonnes. Regional government is advertising, knocking on doors, talking to residents, and conducting focus groups to find out why people shun the bins. Council has not made filling green bins mandatory.
Listen:
http://pmd.570news.com/podcasts/middayshow/Midday-Show_11-12_2014-10-02.mp3
