This is the fourth part in our video series with Molok North America, exploring the waste management challenges faced by the US and Canada, and one of the technological solutions to make recycling and composting more convenient and efficient. If you want to start from the beginning, watch part one of The future of waste handling: In a perfect world.

Mona Hillis, co-owner of Molok North America:

I want to make sure Molok continues going down the path of its one true vision, of really: sustainability.

And, no matter how big the company grows, no matter how many collection trucks we have out on the road, and how many employees there are; that we all feel like we’re one big unit – everyone being a family – moving towards a bigger goal. Of making the world a better place.

Susan Antler, Executive Director, Compost Council of Canada

We all have a responsibility. We’re all part of the continuum; the cycle of life that has to be much more respectful in terms of waste management.

We as human beings are not the only creatures in the world. And so we all have to have the will, we have to have the convenience, we have to have the systems and the trust that it’s going to be done well and right.

Narrator:

The UN has given us until 2030 to fix our attitudes – and more importantly our actions – around production and consumption. We need to be thinking differently, and we need to be thinking very, very big. But we also need to believe that we can make the world a better place. It’s easy to become disillusioned – but progress is being made, every single day.

Bryan Staley, President and CEO, Environmental Research and Education Foundation:

Well I think we’re in for some exciting and dynamic changes.  I think we’ll see increasing collaboration between product manufacturers and waste management entities, which will create a shift in the design of and the materials used for, packaging products and goods. This will make a much larger portion of the discards reusable or recyclable. For example, if most plastic packaging were to move to highly recyclable and usable resins such as PET and HDPE, this will serve to create stronger and broader end markets.

Brent Wootton PhD, Vice President of Applied Research, Fleming College:

Diversion of food waste is really something we need to improve on. France as an example issued a national ban on organics in the municipal waste stream. We need leadership like that in Canada.

Food waste of course fills up landfill sites, and costs the Canadian economy from CAD 30-100bn a year.

There are all kinds of innovative technologies. Companies like Molok have novel approaches to waste management, and there are lots of other solutions that could be explored and implemented.

Tim Corcoran, Vice President of Business Development for Molok North America:

Where we need to go is to get as much out of landfill as possible.

If you look at a waste depot in Finland, for example: the smallest container will be the waste. If you look at one here in North America, the biggest container’s the waste. We need to change that. And we need to educate people on why it’s important to change it, why we need to get the waste out of the landfills, we need to make sure that the plastics are being dealt with so they don’t clog up the oceans. And we need to make sure that we’re putting the organics where they should go, because that can be turned into energy; something that can actually help society.

I think as a waste management company, we have a responsibility to work collaboratively with others, to educate the communities on what needs to be done.

Mark Hillis, CEO and President of Molok North America:

There’s a lot of challenges facing the world of waste management and recycling into the future. And in the next five years and even 10 years out, there’s many things that have to happen. Efficiency, as far as collection is concerned, and as it relates to global warming. The consumer’s ability to separate the appropriate recyclables into the proper streams without contamination. The industry’s ability to take those recyclables and turn them back into usable commodities, that can be fed back into the supply chain. Those are all really really important over the next five to 10 years. And they’re significant from a global health perspective, and making the world a better place.

Molok is poised to really meet all of those demands. If you go back to the very basic concepts of Molok: the fact that it’s a space saver, the fact that it’s semi-underground, and as a result waste is kept cool, odours are at a minimum. The fact that it’s usually 1.5 to 2.5 times the volume of a similar sized container by weight. Those are terrific advantages.

If we can reduce the service frequency, say for an apartment building, by 30-50 percent a year. What are the advantages that brings, from a truck traffic perspective, from a safety perspective, from a CO2 emissions perspective? Wear and tear on equipment?

All those things that Molok brings to the table because of its simple design from Veikko Salli. Those advantages are all there, and bring efficiencies in so many different ways to the end user. That I think Molok is poised very well to meet the future needs of the waste industry within the world.

Tim Corcoran, Vice President of Business Development for Molok North America:

The future is very bright. We have been in Canada for 20 years, and we continue to expand. Our business continues to grow at double digit increases every year.

I’d like to see us everywhere. But I think in the short term, our goal is to educate the municipalities, the various levels of government, parks: educate the community on the alternatives. And get to the point where we are accepted and referred to as the alternative to the conventional types of containers.

As we become more broad-based, our future is limitless.

Mark Hillis, CEO and President of Molok North America:

I want to see Molok North America grow sustainably, quickly, and aggressively. And we’ve been experiencing that for a number of years now.

Anywhere you plant a Molok container, they just multiply from there. Because people see very quickly the concept of Molok, and the advantages that it brings to the end user.

So everywhere we’ve established a market in Canada, it’s grown considerably from there.

There’s no limit to what we can do.

Mona Hillis, co-owner of Molok North America:

Molok meant a lot to my mom; and she really wanted to build a company that educated everyone, and brought environmental consciousness to the everyday person in a positive and simple way.

As a young person, this generation; it’s kind of up to us to keep the world going. I feel it’s a social responsibility to take care of our planet, and give to it what we want back from it. And it’s easier to do than people think.

That’s what I want for Molok.