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We’re happy to report that large appliances are now being accepted at GIRR’s recycling depot. You are welcome to bring your appliances in any weekend during our regular operating hours of 9:30 am to 2:30 pm on Fridays & Saturdays. To support the service of handling and running large appliances into town, a $30/item fee will be payable in cash at time of drop off. Please speak…

Along with the temperature, commercial materials start to drop off around this time of year. To keep our ICI (commercial) program running efficiently and to prevent commercial users rates from climbing, every December we move to alternate Thursday openings until spring. This year Christmas and New Years Day both fall on a Thursday, and we will be closed for both.

Commercial users, please make…

Now that the cool weather has settled in, we are really looking forward to the finishing off of the new processing and cleaning building. As washing of plastics is a large part of the hours going into processing, having hot water and a better space to dry stuff will be essential for the winter months. Many of you will have seen the Phoenix Plastics key chains for…

Phoenix Plastics is happy to introduce our first product: the Galiano Key Chain. Composed of 100% post-consumer #2 HDPE recycled plastic, it is finished with solid brass and zero-waste leather components. The Galiano Key Chain is truly deserving of its name. Not only is the plastic processed and recycled here on-site at Phoenix Plastics and the key chain produced on-island, it is also a topographical model of…

Coming up on Saturday, September 27th from 10 am to 1 pm is an all-ages Clothing Swap, Textiles Repair & Upcycling event. The event is hosted by GIRR and held at the Galiano South Hall at 141 Sturdies Bay Road. We are still looking for volunteers, so if you’d like to help, please email Renée at galianorecycles@gmail.com.

Our multi-focus textiles events have been…

We are currently looking to expand our contact list for contractors who can effectively perform site maintenance, repairs, and upgrades around the recycling centre. Our project list includes some light plumbing, construction, and problem solving. A bonus would be a person who also has knowledge and experience with electrical and small motors. If you have these skills and capacity to take on small projects on an as-needed…

We are now accepting marine debris, to be recycled responsibly through Ocean Plastic Depot in Richmond, BC. Their organization has been around since 2020, supporting coastal communities to manage the burden of plastic pollution that washes up on our beaches. They do great work, and we’re grateful for the service they provide!

Examples of accepted marine debris are oyster baskets & crab pots, foam…

One of our main inspirations behind Phoenix Plastics product design is to make items that will be useful within our community. We see this as a way of reducing transport emissions two fold: first by lessening the flow of recyclable material off-island, second by making product that will be used in our local community and thus lessening the ‘importing’ of goods to Galiano. So if you…

Having laid the groundwork for Phoenix by learning best practices to produce sheets of post-consumer plastics, next came the time to consider how we might make use of this new material. We are fortunate to have access to a CNC machine on Galiano, enabling us to test out a method for engraving. We’re very happy with the results!

Another tool that…

Meet our team! At the end of 2023 we brought Oliver and David into the GIRR fold to work with us on the Phoenix Plastics project. These two are full of knowledge, experience, and unbridled enthusiasm for recycling post-consumer plastics on Galiano.

In May 2024 we generated our first test sheet of recycled plastic. Though this first piece may be a…