Bottle caps can be left on the container and placed in your blue bag. Recycling technologies have improved and keeping the lid on is no longer an issue. Essentially, the two components are separated naturally in a process referred to as a water bath. The bottles float and the caps sink, making it easy to separate the two materials.

On the other hand, removing the caps can cause them to be improperly sorted early on in the recycling process. Because of their small size, individual caps are often sorted into piles of landfill-bound waste.

Recycling and garbage trucks are dual compartment trucks and the width of the smallest of these compartments is 2 feet.

Material must be bundled to the size which will fit in the truck compartments.

There is no limit on the amount of recycling that you can put out.

You can place multiple container bags and multiple paper bags to the curb on your scheduled collection day.

Cardboard can be put in bags or bundled (2x2x1).

If you miss your collection day you can set out your recyclables the following recyclable collection day.

Recycling can also be taken to the Robin Hood Bay Waste Management Facility at 340 East White Hills Road.  Click Here for Hours of Operation.

It is extremely important to prepare items correctly before placing them in your blue bags. This means:

• Clean out obvious food residue from your containers.
• Remove wrap or plastic from boxes and paper.
• Please take a few extra seconds and move any items inappropriately placed in the recycling bag to the trash.

No. You can leave labels on your plastic bottles and metal cans.

All of these items are fine to toss into the “Paper” recycling blue bag.

In the recycling process, all paper, even the glossy, is converted to pulp, and all non-natural fibres such as metal will be strained out.

So don’t waste your time removing staples or plastic windows!

Even though the manufacture puts a recycling symbol on most styrofoam packaging it doesn’t mean that it is acceptable in the City’s program.  We cannot take any styrofoam for the following reasons:

• Some styrofoam can break up easily causing contamination of other material.
• Styrofoam markets are limited and have very high standards for this material.
• The market value is very, very low for such high standards.

When we researched the markets for plastic bags they were not willing to purchase them from new customers.

We were advised by our consultants to not include them in the program as they would create some serious problems for our sorting and processing equipment by getting tangled and wrapped around the equipment breaking parts, causing it to not operate properly.

Bags can get into other materials and end up contaminating other loads of recycling.

We encourage you to reduce your use of disposable plastic shopping bags by using reusable bags.

Plastic bags can be returned to most grocery stores for recycling.

We recommend that you shred any paper items that contain personal information before you put it in your blue bag for curbside recycling.

Shredded paper can be put in a blue bag along with other paper items including cardboard and boxboard.

Across Canada many curbside recycling programs require the use of blue bags. There are a number of reasons for this and some of them include:

• Blue bags are recyclable in our Recycling Facility while other colour bags are not.
• Blue bags work in the bag breaker machinery in our Recycling Facility because they are thin and can easily be ripped open; other bags are often thicker and can jam the machinery.
• When recyclables are in blue bags our collectors know it is recycling in the bags; it is more difficult for them to determine if items in clear/colourless bags are meant for recycling or garbage.

Recycling is collected bi-weekly on the same day as garbage collection.

Recycling is collected in a separate truck from the garbage.

Recycling trucks have 2 compartments in the back so container recyclables go in one compartment and paper recyclables in the other.

Glass breaks during the recycling collection and sorting process. When it breaks it becomes an occupational health and safety issue as it is dangerous for the people sorting.

Broken glass can easily contaminate other recycling material which is problematic for the manufacturers buying the material. Their equipment can become jammed, parts can break, and equipment may not work as smoothly because of the glass resulting in an inferior product. Then the manufacturers’ customers are not satisfied or they may have to dispose of the product because it cannot be sold. Therefore, a clean product to sell to the manufacturers is what we want to provide. This will ensure that our material gets recycled.

Today glass is not in high demand. The next time you’re at the grocery store, take a moment to note how many plastic containers are used compared to glass containers. You will find that there are far more plastic containers. If there is low demand for the material then the market price will be low. High gasoline prices, breakage of glass containers and plastic being inexpensive to purchase to make containers all contribute to less glass being used for food, resulting in lower demand for it.

The Green Depots do take deposit-bearing glass beverage containers (ie: juice, pop, wine, imported beer, etc) and domestic beer bottles can be returned to a beer retailer for refund and reuse. Glass jars can be reused for storage of different things from food to nuts and bolts, nails and more things.

Click here to listen to an interview with recycling advocate Helen Spiegelman on the CBC Radio show The 180: Helen Spiegelman looks at the environmental and economic concerns of glass recycling, and comes to an interesting solution.