I was astonished to see notice alerts of unacceptable items taped onto at least seven recycle bins as I went on my morning walk the other day. And I only walked around one block.
The alerts were mostly for including plastic bags, but some were for clothes in the recycle bin. As we had been warned, the contaminated bins weren’t picked up. Don’t be angry with recycle truckers for leaving your stuff. You wouldn’t ask them to sort your laundry – hopefully – so why would you ask them to sort your recyclables.
The solution is simple: don’t include plastic bags or other unacceptable items. For the years I’ve lived here, plastic bags haven’t been accepted in curbside pickup – how can we not know that by now. Plastic bags go to the depots. I commend the drivers for their patience and the community for trying to educate us.
I may not want to be bothered with cleaning and sorting, but I do it. If my contaminated bin is dumped into the same truck as my neighbours’ clean recyclables, the whole load can be rejected as contaminated. I’d be wasting time for my family, my neighbours, my community, our drivers and the sorters at the other end.
And I’d be wasting my taxes, my neighbours’ taxes and my community’s taxes. Not only do contaminated loads go to the landfill, it may mean we do not get the Recycle BC funding for our community, thus increasing our taxes even more, because of my carelessness.
Recycling is only a temporary solution till regions and residents choose to use non-disposable containers and packaging. For now, let’s care enough to educate ourselves and include only what is accepted in the bins.
Gaileen Irwin,
Chemainus