Aside from the costs, the situation makes it more of a challenge for Waste Check to reduce the amount of garbage produced in Region 7 as it works towards the province’s target of 300 kilograms per person per year.
Bags coming into the recycling facility containing improperly sorted material make things more difficult for the workers, Green said, and result in material going to the landfill that could be recycled had it been sorted the right way to start with.
He notes that, normally, paper products arriving at the recycling facility go straight to the baling area, while bags holding containers go up the line to be sorted.
“In a lot of cases,” Green said, “they (workers at the recycling plant) are dealing with paper on that line that shouldn’t be there. It’s causing materials to be missed and they end up going to the landfill. And they don’t have the (capacity) to take it and re-sort it all again – there’s just not enough hours or staff.”
People with questions about how they should be separating their waste – what goes in what recycling bag, what’s considered garbage etc. – may contact Waste Check by phone or view their website. They also can find a waste separation guide in the yellow pages of the phone book.
“The information is readily available,” Green said.
