News came last week that the Cowichan Valley Regional District is going to be poking their noses into residents’ recycling.
The bottom line is that recyclables from the region are contaminated, to the tune of 15 per cent. It’s a rate that’s one of the highest of any area in the province. To put things in perspective, consider that the acceptable contamination rate is three per cent or lower.
So what’s the big deal? A couple of things.
Recycling collectors are having to deal with not only forbidden items such as Styrofoam and plastic bags, which you are not allowed to put in your recycle bin at curbside, but they’re also running across things like broken glass and lighters, or the ever-disgusting used diapers.
Now we can understand some frustration and confusion over what goes into the recycle bin and what doesn’t. Acceptable and unacceptable items have changed over the years, and some plastic can go, but not all. For example, those plastic bags used to be an item you could put out curbside, but not anymore. Glass is a recyclable item, but not at curbside. Ditto with Styrofoam — it needs to be taken to the transfer station. It can be challenging sometimes, if it’s not your usual items, to figure out if you can stick it in the bin or not.
But dirty diapers? Come on. Everyone knows better than that, or they should, by now. So the CVRD is undertaking this education campaign to try to make sure we don’t all, by region, start to get hit with fines. Because we don’t have people that go through and eliminate all the unwanted stuff for you. It’s more likely we’ll just have whole loads rejected eventually if this keeps up.
We suspect most people are just making honest mistakes. But there are places you can go to find out if something you’ve got should go in the old blue bin. There’s a recycling hotline at 250-746-2540, and you can also go online to www.cvrd.bc.ca/recycling
This month, CVRD staff will further help you out by putting an “Oops” stickers indicating which items you shouldn’t put in the big next time. Those totes that are overly contaminated will not be collected and a sticker will specify why it was left.
If you don’t know what you should put in your recycle bin, now is the time to ask, no harm no foul. If you’ve just been dumping whatever you want it without care, knock it off. You’re making it harder for the rest of us who sometimes make those honest mistakes.
We can do better than 15 per cent.