Education

We want all residents to participate in their recycling program and put out container and paper recycling for collection. Every time we don’t recycle, we’re hurting our environment. We can all do our part and put recyclable containers and paper in the blue boxes. Other materials like plastic bags and overwrap, foam packaging and glass …

Introduction: Recycle BC is responsible for residential packaging and paper recycling in BC. We ensure packaging and paper is collected from households, and recycling depots, processed and responsibly recycled. We service over 1.8 million households through curbside, multi-family and depot collection, including 98% of the population having access to depots and over 155 communities participating …

Do you often wonder why you can include plastic yogurt containers in your recycling bin, but not plastic toys? Or why you can include flyers and magazines, but not books? Recycle BC is responsible for residential packaging and paper recycling and collects material in accordance with Schedule 5 of the Province of BC’s Recycling Regulation. …

We recently received an email from Ms. Martin’s class who are learning to “reduce, reuse, recycle” and we thought this was a great opportunity to share some information about the pollution prevention hierarchy. The Recycle BC program adheres to the pollution prevention hierarchy — a series of steps to manage waste, in order of the …

A tidy garden or fresh coat of paint for your home can make a visual impact in your neighbourhood, but have you thought about your environmental impact? Residents in BC are some of the best recyclers in Canada, but it’s important to stay up-to-date and feel confident in your recycling know-how and Recycle BC is …

Summer is an interesting time in the recycling world. Collectors and processors see an increase in problematic seasonal materials that, in addition to contaminating recyclable materials, can pose serious problems including worker injury, explosions and fires. In this post, we look at one such hazardous item — compressed gas. Some examples of compressed gas include …

Recently, the CBC posted an article titled, “10 kinds of packaging that are a pain in the blue box,” that identified certain materials that should not be included in recycling containers. They write,   Certain kinds of packaging are just too hard for many recycling programs to handle. Some require consumers to take a few extra …

Paper bags lined with plastic are no longer accepted in the Recycle BC program due to recent changes and stricter guidelines in global recycling end-markets, Examples of paper bags lined with plastic include dog food bags and tortilla chip bags. With these changes in effect, it is more important than ever to keep recyclables sorted, …

British Columbians love their coffee, and today’s busy lifestyle means we’re often enjoying our java on the go. Unfortunately, improperly disposing of paper coffee cups creates a mountain of litter and garbage: • Thousands of coffee cups are tossed in garbage bins every week. • 25 per cent of coffee cup waste (using the City …

You may have heard the term before, but what exactly is contamination in the context of residential recycling? Simply put, contamination is material that is not accepted for collection in Recycle BC’s curbside or multi-family packaging and paper collection program. Contamination, in this context can include one or more of the following examples: Material that …