Some Red Deerians need a refresher on what should go in their blue recycling cart.
Recycling Council of Alberta ambassadors are currently digging into city blue carts to assess how households are putting their recycling skills to use.
“They’re finding some strange things. They’re finding things like clothing or shoes or toys. Just things that should go into the garbage,” said Marilyn Moore, the city’s waste diversion specialist.
Some of the more common recycling mistakes are tossing Styrofoam, plastic bags and plastic film into recycling carts.
“For the most part people are good. They do a great job, but a few maybe just don’t understand the program.”
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Blue cart ambassadors arriving in Red Deer next week
She said an example of something that’s not recyclable are greasy pizza boxes. But even though they can’t go in the blue cart, they can go in the green organics cart. Boxes from frozen food are plastic coated also aren’t recyclable and must go in the black garbage cart.
Residents are encouraged to call the city with their recycling questions, email, or go to the city’s recycling information at reddeer.ca which has an online waste sorting tool.
“When we rolled out the carts we did have a fairly extensive education campaign, and we continue to educate residents with cart notes that are put on carts that have contamination in them,” said Moore about the notes left behind to let people know what they did wrong.
“We want to work with residents to make sure they get their carts collected and make sure they’re sorting their waste correctly.”
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Multi-Family residences in Red Deer to receive additional recycling tools
In general residents can recycle paper, cardboard, metal cans and plastics #1 through #7. This includes newspaper, magazines, mixed paper (office paper, junk mail, envelopes, flyers), telephone books, corrugated cardboard, boxboard (cereal boxes, shoe boxes, tissue boxes), #1 to #7 plastic containers and lids (yogurt cups, detergent containers, food platter trays, and plant pots), and metal cans.
Glass bottles and jars are not accepted in blue carts, but can be recycled at drop-off recycling depots at Waste Management of Canada’s office at 6207 47A Ave., or the Waste Management Facility at 1709 40th Ave. (south of 19th Street).