CartSmart shows Regina’s recycling mistakes

The City of Regina’s CartSmart team is done looking at residential recycling and analyzing how you can separate your recycled materials better.

The team spent the fall assessing more than 2,000 recycling carts on the street.

The city says it found that 28 percent of recycling carts received a “Good Job” sticker and 72 percent an “Oops” sticker. The team adds that 36 percent of the residents that received an “Oops” made improvements when the bin was reassessed.

“Residents have told us that they would recycle more if they were more confident about what can and can’t go in the recycling cart. Residents were very receptive to the program and eager to learn,” said Pat Wilson, Director of Water, Waste and Environmental Services in a release. “The program was very successful recognizing good recycling behaviour and educating residents about items that don’t belong in the blue cart.”

Some of the most common recycling mistakes included stretchy plastic bags and film, crinkly plastic packaging, Styrofoam, paper towel ad material in plastic bags.

City Hall is reminding you to also keep all recyclables loose in the cart and not to bag, stack or let items overflow.

The city says the CartSmart team will be back in the new year.

 

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