This is the third 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.

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

When Molok launched 27 years ago, it was with a view to change the way the individual interacts with waste, to encourage better diversion, to encourage more use. To make sure that as we as individuals interact with a waste container, it’s a better experience. It’s not something that’s dirty, it’s not smelly, the lid lifts easily; you’re likely to do what it’s asking you to do. Which is separating our organics from our waste, and separating our recycling from both of those two. People tend to do what’s right.

Brian Page, Vice President of Municipal Affairs for Molok North America:

The beauty of the Molok container was that we could always find a space for it, without having to redesign the whole project.

Narrator:

For 34 years, Brian Page was the Supervisor of Site Development for the City of Kitchener. Any development project subject to planning review –multi-residential, industrial, commercial or institutional – went through him and his team.

Brian Page, Vice President of Municipal Affairs for Molok North America:

One of the problems that we had with site development: architects or developers, the last thing they thought about was where they’re going to contain their waste and recycling. And they had to try and fit it in on site. They’d actually even come to the site development meetings and had totally forgotten. I’d say you know, ‘Where’s your waste and recycling?’ and their jaw would just drop.

So, when Molok came along, and when I first found out about it, it was basically a godsend, because it only used five percent of the space in comparison to putting up a building and putting in a front load container.

And once the development industry learned that not only it used less space, it was less expensive to install. It also saved them money in the number of pickups that they were going to have to do, because it self-compacts and holds more.

So it was a total win for us, and for the development industry. And from the end user’s perspective, they had less number of pickups so they were paying less for their garbage pickup. And it allowed us also to be more creative on where we could put the waste and recycling containers; we could make them very handy to the back door, instead of putting them in a back corner.

So again: it’s a win win win by using these containers.

Narrator:

Molok believes that making its containers convenient, accessible, and attractive is the best way to encourage better waste diversion, and so promote environmental sustainability.

And to make sure the Molok containers are as sustainable as they can be, the company has partnered with the Earth Rangers, a children’s conservation organisation, which runs a centre for sustainable technology in Vaughan, Ontario.

Gavin Yeung, Manager, Earth Rangers Centre:

So the Earth Rangers Centre is really a hub for a lot of new technologies that are not so prevalent in the commercial office sector.

We have geothermal systems, we have solar photovoltaic trackers that track the sun. We also have earth tubes, which harness the constant temperatures in the earth.

Molok is a building sponsor of ours, they’re one of the many technologies we exhibit at the Earth Rangers Centre. We have three Moloks: one for waste, one for recycling, and one for organics.

Julian Tersigni, Facility Manager, Earth Rangers:

The Molok bins are fantastic because a big thing for us is capacity. These guys behind us are 6.5 cubic yards each, with a very little footprint. Because they go five feet into the ground.

Previously we had a four cubic yard bin – two of those – in a conditioned room. The problem with that is that it takes up valuable real estate inside of our building, and it takes up energy.

Our previous bins were collected weekly because of the smaller volume. These bins are collected every two weeks: less pickups means less emissions from the trucks, which is what we stand for.

Gavin Yeung, Manager, Earth Rangers Centre:

We’re doing a study for Molok North America right now.

We’ve put temperature sensors into the Molok bins, to measure how constant are the temperatures year-round in the Molok container. And as well we measure the odours coming from it. So we have odour meters that measure certain particulates that are known to produce odours.

The more constant we can keep the temperature, especially during the summer months, the less often we have to pick up, due to decomposition of the organics especially.

During the winter months, you don’t want especially organic materials to freeze. If it freezes, it gets stuck, and then you don’t have a full pick-up: it ends up being in there until the summer.

The Molok container really keeps a constant temperature at the very bottom of the bin especially: around about 12 to 14 degrees Celsius. At most times it is actually cooler than our conditioned waste room.

And there are no odours emanating from directly outside the Molok that we’ve found from any test that we’ve done so far. So it doesn’t attract the pests a normal bin would that’s sat outside.

Narrator:

Back at its Mount Forest headquarters, the Molok team is working every day to make sure that the 27 year old innovation is keeping up with the expectations of modern users and businesses.

Gary McLean, Fabrication and R&D Manager for Molok North America:

The main product itself really hasn’t changed a lot. The idea and the concept of Molok – being the semi-underground waste containment – is solid. We don’t need to change the actual idea of the product.

So we just constantly are looking at improving, simplifying. Looking to evolve the components that are related to the product, and just make the whole thing better for the user.

Scott Kuglin, Production Manager for Molok North America:

We use a lot of recycled material, as well as a lot of raw material, which then is recyclable. Over 90 percent of our material is recyclable, so it can be re-used in our own production, or recycled and used for future things down the road.

Over the years we’ve increased the amount of recycled materials we use, as well as always looking for new materials that are recyclable or recycled to use in our product, so that we’re always improving environmentally.

Gary McLean, Fabrication and R&D Manager for Molok North America:

You can never develop a good product without really good people behind it.

At the end of the day, R&D has to be a collaboration of everyone’s thoughts. And the team here at Molok is good because we have awesome people at the top that understand the need for developing products. Then you have the production side of things: those guys are spectacular, you know. And then we have our sales staff that always look for the need of the customer, need of the end user.

And then we take everything for our production side, what is actually feasible, what works best. It takes all those team members to actually make that ideal product, that works best for everybody.

Narrator:

As Molok North America looks forward to another 20 years, the world is under more pressure than ever before to up its sustainability game. If we’re to stand a chance of slowing the effects of climate change, we all need to take action – every day – to make the world a better place.

Watch part four of The future of waste handling: A better place.