(File photo/CKOM News Staff)

By Logan Stein

‘Busiest time in our history’: SARCAN sees record numbers in July

Aug 12, 2020 | 11:18 AM

July was a record-breaking month for SARCAN, obliterating its previous record of containers being taken in by more than 10 million.

“It’s been the busiest time in our history,” said Sean Homenick, SARCAN’s manager of communications. “In July we collected over 61 million containers, far exceeding our previous monthly record.”

Homenick added the previous record wasn’t even 50 million.

People are still waiting in long lines to get rid of their bottles, even through nasty weather.

“Even when it has rained or has been gross out, people have weathered the storm and brought umbrellas when they take in their recycling,” Homenick said.

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“In the cities, the lineups are still there. In the smaller communities, it’s busy but obviously not on the same levels as Saskatoon or Regina,”

According to Homenick, spring is usually a busy season for SARCAN.

With COVID-19 not allowing SARCAN to reopen until June 15, it has created the busiest stretch in the company’s history at an unusual time.

“Spring is usually the start of our very busy season, with that not happening this year because we shut down and had missed out on a lot of busy days,” Homenick said. “Some customers don’t visit us in the winter, so they brought in their entire winter’s worth of collection when we reopened.”

The increase in business has forced SARCAN to hire more employees than ever.

“We have needed to do more hiring; we have had to hire a record number of employees,” he said. “We are normally around 700 (and) we have 981 right now.”