Blue-bin blues Many Winnipeggers are either mistaken, lazy or don't care about discarding their recyclables correctly By: Jill Wilson Posted: 7:00 PM CDT Friday, Sep. 21, 2018

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This article was published 20/09/2018 (2290 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

The sticker on the lid of the blue recycling cart is faded and peeling, but clear: “Paper, glass and plastic containers.” The plastic bag with a line through it would seem to speak for itself.

Open the lid, however, and what will you see? Plastic bags. So many plastic bags. Some are loose. Some are filled with recycling. There are even plastic bags stuffed inside plastic bags.

And it’s not just bags. In recent weeks, the communal blue carts outside this Crescentwood condominium have contained a string of dubious objects. A fur vest. A wicker basket. A plastic patio chair. A pot without a handle. Flatware. A broken plate. A bundle of used Swiffer pads and dryer sheets. A panini press inside — wait for it! — a plastic bag.

According to the City of Winnipeg, the most recent statistics show 32.9 per cent of residential solid waste was diverted away from landfills in 2016, but a recycling-material audit shows the level of contamination in the city’s recycling programs from July 2016 to June 2017 was more than 13 per cent.

Is it ignorance? Laziness? Or wilful disregard for the rules?

The City of Winnipeg recently launched an ad campaign, featuring tips about what to keep out of recycling carts and a clippable poster that outlines what items are allowed.

An unscientific study of the kinds of items that regularly turn up in blue bins and carts points to three categories of recycler.

The first is the well-meaning but misguided recycler. These are the people discarding items that, at first glance, appear to be recyclable, but which the City of Winnipeg cannot accept for various reasons.

This list includes things like black plastic (for example, the containers mushrooms are packaged in at the supermarket or coffee-cup lids), plastic wrap (either cellophane or the thicker type), Styrofoam (such as takeout containers, coffee cups or meat trays), paper cups (the kind you get at Tim Hortons or Starbucks, even the compostable ones), foil containers (such as takeout trays or pie plates) and glossy coloured paper (gift bags, wrapping paper).

Many of these items are marked with the triangle symbol that seems as if it should be the universal indicator of “recyclable,”; however, that mobius logo is not the all-clear to throw things in the blue bin.

A subset of the well-meaning are the nesters. These are folks who endeavour to save space by placing smaller items in larger ones — pop cans in soup cans, shampoo bottles crammed into empty cereal boxes. Because 90 per cent of recycling is not sorted manually at the depot, this stuff often gets discarded. That’s right: your nested items are likely to be rendered landfill.

Others put their recyclables in a plastic bag before depositing them in the blue bin. This also becomes garbage: the automated system does not empty out the bags and no one working as a manual sorter should be expected to stick his or her hands into opaque bags. They are thrown out with their contents.

The second category is made up of people who are just winging it and hoping for the best — what those in the business call “wishful recyclers.” This includes people who have failed to make the distinction between “reusable” and “recyclable.” These are the folks who are putting in clothing, running shoes, pot and pans and electronics.

Finally, there are the folks who flip the bird to the very idea of recycling. They’re responsible for the unadulterated garbage that’s chucked in the blue bin, even when there’s a trash can right next to it. They’re behind that dirty diaper, the sprinkle of fast-food fries or the half-full Slurpee cup whose spilled contents render the entire contents of the bin unusable.

Whatever category you fall into, when you fail to recycle correctly, your actions cost money and contribute to landfill. But how bad are we, really?

A Free Press photographer and reporter, armed with the City of Winnipeg’s What Can I Recycle? list, headed out into the Wolseley area on recycling day to see how granola-belt denizens fare.

Neither of them thought to bring gloves, but never fear — a pair of blue latex ones (note: not recyclable) turned up not long into the assignment.

The bins outside Tall Grass Prairie Bakery were picture-perfect examples of recycling done right: cardboard boxes flattened, not a speck of garbage. Even the bakery’s flour bags, normally not accepted because a waxy coating, were an untreated paper variety.

Moving on, however, the stereotype of Wolseley as the green zone was almost immediately proven false. The public bin in front of the bakery was filled with soiled paper plates, dirty plastic cups (recyclable, but not when covered with food), plus plastic straws and many of the bakery’s compostable coffee cups, which can’t be recycled.

And further on down the lane, it got worse. Blue bins and carts should be relatively clean and fly-free; their sides should not be splashed with sticky liquids or goo.

In reality, they were almost as filthy as garbage cans — and filled with almost as much trash, some of it hazardous waste.

One recycling bin was overflowing with such varied forbidden items as rotting fruit, foil potato chip bags, used tissues, a scattering of Q-tips, and a fluorescent light bulb, which contains mercury and shouldn’t even be discarded in the garbage. After gamely arranging them into a trashy tableau called “Still Life with Plum” (and pocketing the bulb for deposit at a 4R Depot), it was on to the next bin.

It only took a couple of blocks to turn up examples of almost everything that cannot be recycled in Winnipeg: glassware (some broken); plastic toys; computer keyboards; electrical cords; paper towels, aluminum foil; packing peanuts; foil pie plates; greasy pizza boxes, clothing and textiles; and, of course, those ubiquitous plastic bags.

Though some of the above items were discarded thoughtlessly, much of would-be recyclers’ confusion can be forgiven. The City of Winnipeg’s rules can seem arbitrary — why wouldn’t the thick plastic protecting an IKEA shelving unit go in the bin? It’s plastic, it’s got a triangle on it — and the exceptions aren’t necessarily logical.

Public receptacles all over town trumpet: “Put your beverage containers here!” There’s no asterisk to signal a disclaimer: *”Except paper coffee cups.” And once you’ve discarded the cup, how to know the disposable lid only works if it’s white plastic?

In the past, Winnipeggers were told not to bother rinsing out containers and that pizza boxes could go in the blue bin (it says so right on the cart lid, in fact). But those rules have changed, based on the needs and requirements of the companies the city has contracts with to take different classes of recycled goods.

“It can be very confusing,” admits Mark Kinsley, a Winnipeg Waste Diversion supervisor, as he walks through the city’s latest 4R Depot on Panet Road, one of three locations where Winnipeggers can drop off the many items not accepted for residential recycling.

“We want everything to be as clean as possible,” he says, adding that means not just removing food residue, but also trying not to mix materials, keeping things homogenous. “Ideally, you’re taking your metal lids off your glass jars, which you’ve cleaned out. You can bring your windows here (to the 4R Depot), but they can’t have frames.”

Foil or plastic film on plastic yogurt and cheese containers, for instance, should be removed and discarded.

As for the mixed messages city residents may feel they’ve received over the years, Kinsley understands the frustration but points out that the city has no control over what’s accepted.

“One of the confusing, challenging things about about the recycling industry is that it’s always changing,” he explains. “It’s great to put it in your bin or bring to your 4R Depot to drop off, but it needs somewhere to go after. The circular effect changes (based on) the market, so before, the market wasn’t as concerned about residual food or liquid. Well, now they are.

“A big thing that’s been in the news lately is China was accepting lots of North America and the rest of the world’s material, and they’ve basically shut the doors. Long story short, it’s because they were getting too much literal garbage in recycling loads.”

Best rule to follow? If you don’t know, find out. Information is available from 311, on winnipeg.ca and through the RecycleCoach app.

“We’re trying to get the best message out that will get us the best material but also not confuse people to the point where they say, ‘What’s the point? I don’t know what to do anymore,’” Kinsley says. “It’s a unique challenge.”

jill.wilson@freepress.mb.ca

Twitter: @dedaumier

Jill Wilson
Senior copy editor

Jill Wilson writes about culture and the culinary arts for the Arts & Life section.

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