Not Recyclable

Originally published Oct 26/16 The Reminder. Flin Flon, Mb. Sponsored by North of 53 Consumers Coop.

Things were quite slow at the Recycling Centre after the snow arrived early this month. 
Now that the weather is nicer, business has definitely picked up so I spent time on the floor helping to bag up materials for recycling.

We do not sort, but have to take everything out of the boxes and bags they come in, remove the garbage, beer cans and glass.

It is a great opportunity for me to see what information people need to reduce the amount of garbage we have.

First, the good news. Many bags had very little or no garbage. I just took out some glass or beer containers. That tells me the information is available and many people are following it.  

Here are several items we still find regularly that are not recyclable:

• Plastic bags and wrap. We only recycle ‘rigid’ plastic, like containers. We cannot recycle any ‘film’ plastic like bags.
• Coffee cups, disposable plates, cups, cutlery. The only exception is plastic cups that are not a #6. The number is in recycling symbol on the bottom. If there is an ‘S’ in the letters below the symbol it is a #6.
• Styrofoam
• Paper towels, candy wrappers, Kleenex and disposable paper products.
• Dishes, window glass, etc. Only glass jars and bottles are accepted.

Items should not be drippy, sticky or gooey. I put the half full yogurt container in the garbage.

A box of newspapers and other recyclable items had a container with some solvent in it. Unfortunately, it had spilled on everything including the cardboard box.  It was garbage.

Information about what is recyclable is available at 204 687 6169 or on the web www.flinflonrecycling.org.