Five recycling mistakes you make every day
While there are no national standards around recycling (a bluebin faux pas in Montreal might be okey-dokey in Vancouver), here’s how to avoid the most common recycling blunders
1. You forgot to rinse When you neglect to wash out a peanut butter tub or crush a greasy pizza box with pepperoni still clinging to the lid into the recycling bin, it gets redirected to a landfill. If any of those contents spread, the rest of your recyclables are also considered contaminated, and all your good recycling intentions were for nothing.
2. You thought there was a safety net at the other end Imagine a recycling centre with “hundreds of thousands of tons a day being thrown onto a conveyor belt going probably 10 kilometres an hour.” That’s how Jo-Anne St. Godard, executive director of the Recycling Council of Ontario, describes a big-city recycling facility.
The chances that somebody has time to grab your soiled pizza box and rip off just the unsullied parts? Slim to none.
3. You haven’t read the fine print That recycling symbol with the three arrows doesn’t always mean an item can go in the blue bin. Matt Keliher, general manager of waste services for the City of Toronto, says sometimes it just indicates the packaging is made from recycled content.
4. Your data is outdated “People still don’t know what can be recycled, and that stuff ends up in the garbage,” Keliher says. Recycling technology has changed, and some things (like sandwich bags) are now widely accepted. Also, textiles should never go in the trash—take them to the nearest H&M store, and they’ll recycle them for you!
5. Your purchases don’t come in recyclable packaging To divert waste from landfills, shop to maximize the number of items coming into your home that can go back out via the blue box. “You’re sending a signal back to producers,” says St. Godard. “You’re voting with your wallet.” —Sarah Steinberg
made today are for disposable products.
in the first place. “That’s why it’s so important to let politicians know what kind of planet you want to see,” he urges. “Send letters or make calls to your municipal, provincial and federal representatives, and vote for candidates who make the environment a priority.”
In addition to voicing your concerns, Lindsay Coulter of the David Suzuki Foundation suggests smaller, local actions that together can affect bigger change. Create a clean-street program in your community, gather neighbours to plant bee-friendly flowers and sign up for a shoreline or river cleanup. You can also join a group that works with your city or province to encourage climate action or one that connects other environmental changemakers (like GoodWork.ca). It takes a village to protect the planet. —Susan Nerberg