Recycling in Canada?
 

Are there bits of Canada that are hot on recycling? NB doesn't appear to be...I couldn't work out why the neighbours have bin after bin of rubbish, it's because they are shoving everything in it. I rang City Hall this morning to find out where to take my glass and was told to stick it in my garbage. This can't be the same all over Canada surely? It just seems odd that you are asked not to wear perfume in public in case someone is allergic and have a by-law to cover everything from the length of your dogs leash, to appropriate places to fly a kite...but are asked to put glass in the rubbish. It's bloody good that Canada is big if this is all going into land fill.

Re: Recycling in Canada?
 

Vancouver has mandatory recycling (You can be fined for putting recyclables in landfill).

Re: Recycling in Canada?
 

We have free blue box collection for glass, metal, paper and plastics. Anything else you want taken away goes in the garbage and costs a couple of bucks for a garbage tag sticker per bag.

Some places also have municipal compost pickup, but we just have a pile in the backyard that the racoons help dispose off...:frown:

Re: Recycling in Canada?
 

We have blue boxes, like Iain, green bins for leftover food / organic stuff (both collected weekly) and general garbage in big black plastic packs collected once a fortnight.

All free (or rather flat rate within the property tax).

They'll also take old furniture etc etc without blinking, although if it's usable, just putting on the street with a "free" note on it guarantees its disappearance overnight.

Oh, and unlimited garden waste packed into brown paper bags during the season. (The bags cost a couple of bucks for 5 at any supermarket.

Re: Recycling in Canada?
 

As with so much in Canada, it all depends upon the municipality and/or province. The town I live in recently instituted kerbside pickup of cardboard/paper/plastic/food containers. Domestic, locally produced beer bottles (which are a different size from the mainland) go back to the beer depot or the local corner store for a refund of the deposit (5c). Other beverage containers get taken to the green depot for the same. We compost at home.

With all that, on average we're putting 2 bags out a week for garbage for a family of four. And one bag of that probably consists of diapers. We're not green enough not to use disposable diapers.;)

Re: Recycling in Canada?
 

I'm out of city limits, so no garbage collection. The truck gets loaded with garbage every few weeks, I drive to the dump, hand over $7.50 and it all gets buried. Driving an additional 16kms round trip to separate glass etc etc holds no interest.

Re: Recycling in Canada?
 

Tell me more please.

Re: Recycling in Canada?
 

Looks like it's not even the same in the same province.

We have wet/green and dry/blue bags. They have to be clear. If a black bag or completely clear one is put out it gets a sticker on it and it's left. Ditto if they can see something is in the wrong bag, although that's not as much a no-no as the wrong bag.

There's a delivery place for the "unsafe" stuff but it's no good unless you have transport to get it there.

Annual pick up (twice over the river, I think) for large stuff. And irritatingly, depots for bottles and cans. It's just not appealing (or easy or practical) to load 20-30 plastic 2l bottles into a backpack and cycle over there for $1 to $1.50 - not to mention embarrassing when others are collecting $80. So they go out with the rest. Fund raisers used to collect them but they're not interested anymore.:unsure:


And leashing a cat.:blink:

:rofl::rofl:

Re: Recycling in Canada?
 

I put off figuring out how the recycling works until I couldn't get in the pantry anymore because of all the boxes of stuff I'd collected. I can put paper, some plastic and tins (with labels removed) (all bagged separately) in the recycling bin by our alley. Any container that held a beverage can be taken to the local recycling centre and you get some money back depending on the numbers/sizes of the containers. Most of our organic waste just gets put down the garbage disposal in the sink (I'm still terrified of it though).

Re: Recycling in Canada?
 

When we lived in Calgary, one of the things that enraged me the most was to see all these selfish, brain-dead cretins who would meticulously water their lawns daily (automated, naturally), mow their lawns weekly (gasoline powered, naturally), and fill plastic bin bags with the trimmings, to be oh-so-neatly lined up on the drive for collection and dumped in the landfill.

Greenest city in Canada, apparently.

Re: Recycling in Canada?
 

Most of BC has pretty good recycling programs but I don't think any municipality does food stuff like Novocastrian mentioned, if they did they'd have to start an "adopt a bear" program at the same time.

Re: Recycling in Canada?
 

Vancouver does a yard waste bin And you are meant to put food scraps in that!

Re: Recycling in Canada?
 

That must be limited to downtown Vancouver 'cus you can't even have a bird feeder over on the Shore

Re: Recycling in Canada?
 

Melancthon, a little part of Ontario, has a red neck population; the dump has signs warning that out-of-hours it's a hunting area so enter at your own risk. There's no garbage pick up. Still it's astonishingly efficient, the dump is supervised; clear glass, coloured glass, cardboard, appliances, tyres, metals, compost (usable) compost (unusable) all have their places. I didn't pay much attention to the compost piles because, at the time, I had chickens and so nothing left to contribute, but people did turn up with their horse and dog shit in different bins. They charge for the really troublesome stuff, shingles and the like, otherwise you just need a residence card.

Now, I suspect that a big lorry comes and all this carefully collated stuff is hauled away and dumped in a hole in Michigan, but, locally, every effort is made.

Re: Recycling in Canada?
 

Bears don't tend to cross the bridges. It's news when they do:

http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/britis...vancouver.html

Re: Recycling in Canada?
 

We don't have bears here, but we do have raccoons, who are incredibly ingenious. I used to have the green food waste bin, with it's "tamper proof" latch, on the back porch. Very regularly indeed the local raccoons would break in and redistribute the contents.

Now I have a little shed-like thing (only the one, not two like Oink).

This mostly defeats the bastards.

Re: Recycling in Canada?
 

Garbage collection here is once every two weeks.

One truck comes for:
Green wheelie bin containing compostables.
One black bag with real, non-recyclable garbage.
Up to three clear bags for additional, non-recyclable garbage.

Another truck comes for:
Blue bags containing paper/cardboard.
Blue bags containing plastic items and some other things (e.g. aluminium items such as foil, cans etc).

If you put the wrong things in a bag or use an incorrectly coloured bag (e.g. because you ran out of the correct colour), they slap a sticker on the bag telling you so and don't bother collecting it. Which can be annoying.

There are also a couple of recycle places downtown where empties, old electronics, quantities of metal etc can be taken in exchange for cash.

Re: Recycling in Canada?
 

Ours in Oakville is pretty similar to Novocastrian's. Green bin for kitchen waste (including meat scraps, bones, etc as well as any more 'traditional' compostables that don't go in the garden composter), blue boxes for hard recyclables - paper, card, plastics, cans, non-returnable bottles, etc. Both collected once a week. FOrtnightly collection of black bags for actual garbage, and brown paper sacks of yard waste. Bulky items collected from kerbside once every six weeks or so, if they haven't been scavenged overnight first. It's pretty efficient: our family of 5 produces 3 or 4 black bags of garbage every fortnight, of which 1 or 2 are diapers (like AX, we're not green enough to bother with reusable ones).

Halton region has a well managed waste processing and reclamation facility (i.e. recycling, municipal composting, and landfill). There was a piece in the local paper the other day about its ever-extending lifespan: originally commissioned in 1992 with a life expectancy of 20 years, more and more landfill diversion of green waste and recyclables extended its lifespan first to 2023 and now to 2040, despite the region's population almost doubling in that time span. And they run an "open week" when we can go and shovel up as much compost/organic mulch as we need every spring, for the price of a donation to the local food bank.

Re: Recycling in Canada?
 

Burnaby is same as Van - and we get bears and coyotes (esp. burnaby mtn).

We put all our food scraps in yard waste bin. Like Van we get fined if we don't recycle properly.

Re: Recycling in Canada?
 

I'm sorry, but I can't seem to work out the multiple quotes bit, but...the lady over the road has a tamper proof bin, but seem to regularly manage to trap a raccoon, and has had many mornings when she has had a good and cross one trapped! I brought an incredibly expensive bin with me (as I was not going to leave it) and it seems to have defeated them, it has four wheels a bit like a Dyson, so it seems to roll all over the garden. Every day it's in a new place so the raccoons are evidently trying...As is my Cairn Terrier, but that's quite another story.

Re: Recycling in Canada?
 

My husband used to live somewhere with that system, and they had a number of problems with polar bears and he was there for years...but again it seems to work well as people are responsible for their own waste and deal with it accordingly.

To my great chagrin, I can sing songs about waste recycling, as the kids were so steeped in the necessity of it...trust me I promise not to give voice, if you pay me well!

I want chickens here (just three, and I have to buy a licence!)...I brought my own purple Eglu Cube by Omlet, so I shall get rid of my edible waste that way...maybe I shall only have to drink wine that comes in plastic bottles or make my own!

Re: Recycling in Canada?
 

Hamilton has 2 blue boxes, one for paper and cardboard and one for plastics, glass and other recyclable items; a green bin for biodegradable items and we are permitted 1 black bin bag or 1 garbage bin for general garbage per week. Once every 2 months we are permitted to put out 3 black bin bags (on a specific week), at Christmas we are also permitted extra. Garden waste - clippings, leaves etc., go into brown paper bags for collection. Large items can be left at the curbside between May and September for collection by prior arrangement. Christmas tree's can be put out after Christmas for collection.

If you put anything in a blue box that doesn't belong then they leave the box in situ complete with contents with a sticker attached.

One thing I really don't understand - why isn't wrapping paper (i.e. Christmas/Birthday wrapping paper) allowed to be recycled? We have to put it in the garbage!

Re: Recycling in Canada?
 

Yup Van City proper !

Re: Recycling in Canada?
 

hmmm, no garbage collection here.

everything gets thrown into the back of the truck and dumped in various sections of the local tip - ie metal in one bits, plastic in another, empty oil and paint cans in another bit etc etc. The rest (ie household stuff) get chucked in a big hole in the ground which includes glass.

I'm too lazy to get on the bandwagon of recyling everything that I touch, the kitchen wouldn't be big enough for the amount of boxes you'd need and I certainly can't be arsed to be washing out jam jars and yoghurt pots when I can just throw them in the bin.

Re: Recycling in Canada?
 

That's usually only the foil type wrapping paper. We have the same rule but if it's the paper wrapping paper it's OK.

Frankly, that's justa piss poor attitude.

Re: Recycling in Canada?
 

Toronto takes it fairly seriously. Black bin for general garbage, blue bin for all recyclables, green bin for compostables. No boxes of the type I used to have in the UK though for some reason. Blue and black bins are picked up alternate weeks, green ones weekly.

Re: Recycling in Canada?
 

You sound like my dad

Re: Recycling in Canada?
 

Your dad's probably a very wise man :)

Re: Recycling in Canada?
 

The blue bins are for recycling of plastics, newspapers etc and are collected separately from normal garbage. Beer bottles etc can be put here too or taken to the recycling centers on the north and south sides to get cash back.

Re: Recycling in Canada?
 

Did you ever watch Harry Enfield? Remember the "You don't wanna do it like that" character ................ ?

Re: Recycling in Canada?
 

Pretty rabid round here about recycling and as each garbage bag costs $1.75 you only want to put one out a week.

Styrofoams a problem though, they don't collect it and yet you seem to get loads of it.

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Beer bottles left unattended on the front porch here are recycled incredibly quickly, step inside for a pee and your bottle is in some homeless guy's bicycle trailer.

Re: Recycling in Canada?
 

I'm reminded of Douglas Adams' speculation that the missing Dark Matter in the Universe is packaging material.

Re: Recycling in Canada?
 

if that's the case then much of it is in our garage.

Re: Recycling in Canada?
 

Red Deer City: Blue bin (that you pay extra for monthly) for paper, plastics, cans. Summer free yard waste pick up - winter free Christmas tree pick up and I think up to 5 black bags per week. A separate truck for each service on the same day.

Red Deer County: Yer on yer own mate, do as you will...

We do save drinks containers and either donate or collect the fee when we take them back. Haven't yet got a compost heap, don't know if I will.

Re: Recycling in Canada?
 

I'm going to do this...and hope that someone wants them at some point. My mother-in-law, in Calgary, saves them up and the Boy Scouts' come and collect.... alternatively, I can drink at a steady pace, save it all up and if nobody comes to take them, I should be able to put my kid through uni on the proceeds! It give me a goal.

Re: Recycling in Canada?
 

Here, various schools have recycling drives from time to time. Drop off the recyclables that have a deposit on them - drinks containers - and the school deals with them to get the deposits. Might be worth looking out for.

Re: Recycling in Canada?
 

Where I live now we have a large recycling bin which is collected once a week.
You can also take soft drink cans and bottles to the local supermarket and get back 5c each.

If you put out metal items someone will take it before the bin men come round.

When I lived on the east side of Montreal, We had 3 collections per week two for general rubbish and once per week for recycling.

If you put anything that you could get money back on, the local homeless people would take it. There was also those who would take any barely useable furniture that you might put out.

Re: Recycling in Canada?
 

Brown bin (compostables) is once a week. We line it with yard waste bags because they are cheaper than brown bin bags. The same guys pick up as many yard waste bags as you care to put out, along with branches and any tree stump they can physically lift.

Blue bin (very large) is every two weeks and there is no need to sort. The dumpster divers arrive before the truck. The blue bin guys are picky about styrofoam. They chuck back in your yard.

Regular trash is every two weeks. Our bin is rarely full and mostly contains cat shit. The trash guys will take just about anything left out, although some stuff needs to be packaged discreetly (like drywall and decking). Anything remotely useful or valuable left at the bottom of the driveway is gone long before the truck shows up.

Re: Recycling in Canada?
 

When my kids were younger, we had to save the Campbell's soup labels for the school

http://www.labelsforeducation.com/

Not sure if anyone does this anymore though