The Recycling Centre usually has a booth at the spring Trade and Leisure Show displaying all the things that can be recycled and how much can be kept out of landfills.
This past spring I decided to pay the extra for a corner booth. One side displayed the usual recyclable items. The other side was a display of the common non-recyclable items we receive.
The display of non-recyclables was the most popular at the Leisure Show. Many were surprised by some of the non-recyclable items.
Seeing these items in real life is very effective.
The next best thing to seeing things in real life is pictures. As the saying goes, a picture is worth a thousand words.
We have recently added pictures to our website, www.flinflonrecycling.org. There is also a pinned post with pictures on the Flin Flon Recycling Facebook page.
There are two reasons the extra cost at the leisure show and the extra effort on the web is worthwhile.
The most obvious is that we want to reduce the amount of garbage we receive.
The second more important reason comes from a realization that people are uninformed.
It often feels like people are too lazy to or don’t care. This is probably true in some cases.
However, I have had many conversations with dedicated recyclers who didn’t know that a particular item is not recyclable. Plastic bags, Styrofoam and coffee cups are common examples.
This surprises me as this information has been a common message in our advertising. But people pay attention to different things or are not in a place to get the message.
The pictures and displays are another way to get the message out.