Embracing the blue box as ‘a way of life’
WATERLOO REGION — The blue box celebrates its 35th anniversary Wednesday.
The program launched widely in Kitchener in 1983 with 31,000 homes separating recyclables from their household waste for curbside collection for the first time ever.
When it started, there were questions about the value of recycling, said Cari Rastas Howard, project manager of waste management programs for Waterloo Region. But those were soon put to rest.
“Our residents have made it clear over the years that they value recycling,” she said.
The green endeavour started small with a pilot program in 1981 in the Aud neighbourhood, where 250 homes were given a blue plastic corrugated box to collect steel cans, glass jars and newsprint.
Nyle Ludolph was the pioneer behind the blue box, seeing it as something everyone could do to help the environment. Recycling wasn’t a new concept, with people toting items like newspapers and kitchen grease to depots.
But Ludolph wanted to make it convenient for everyone to do their part to divert recyclable materials from landfill. And he had the right idea — the pilot was a success with more than three times the anticipated amount collected in the first month. “Everybody got on board,” Rastas Howard said. “For those who grew up with the program, it’s just a way of life.”
The region is hoping the same will happen with the green bin, which recycles organic waste. Already, the introduction of the green bin echoed the blue box’s trajectory.
When the recycling pilot started, people saw the bins and called the region to ask how they could get one. The same thing happened with the green bin’s limited launch.
Both soon “took over neighbourhoods.” Some people weren’t quite sure what they were doing at first, and the contents were slim, but they wanted to be a part of it like their neighbours.
“People are learning and the first step is to recognize you want to put this out and you figure it out as you go,” Rastas Howard said.
The region was also behind a couple other recycling firsts.
It created the first recycling truck, designed and built locally for one-person operation with different compartments for sorting. Then, it opened the first community sorting centre in 1991 on Erb Street, which was expanded in the late 1990s.
More and more materials have been added to the list of accepted recyclables: aluminum and plastics in the mid-’80s, cartons in the last decade and plastic bags a few years ago.
The sorting centre was renamed in honour of Ludolph, who always stressed that all three Rs were important. Recycle is the third R, following reduce and reuse.
“He truly believed in waste reduction overall,” Rastas Howard said.
She said with the introduction of the green bin and switch to bi-weekly garbage collection, there is a shift more toward reduce and reuse. Ludolph would be proud of how far the region has come since blue boxes started appearing at the curb 35 years ago.
Ludolph, who died in 2011, said in a 1992 Record article: “You’re not a hero if you fill your blue box, you’re a hero if you have nothing to put in it.”