Bad news, apartment-dwellers: more than half the stuff you try to recycle is ending up in the dump.
The latest statistics show the city's recycling plant "rejected" 52-percent of would-be recyclables collected by the truckload from apartments and condo towers so far this year as too "contaminated."
That means the final destination for your failed blue box offerings is actually the Glanbrook dump.
The city told councillors in a new memo it will ramp up enforcement on trashy tower recycling — in particular, by refusing to collect contaminated loads until they're cleaned up by a building superintendent.
The memo didn't specify how many tonnes of paper, plastic, metal and glass are lost to those rejected truckloads. But "multi-residential" buildings, including condo towers and apartment highrises, represents about a third of all city dwellings and more than 150,000 residents.
The woeful recycling numbers are partly due to last year's crackdown on imported recyclables in China that effectively eliminated the market giant as a buyer for Canadian paper and plastic, said waste collection manager Joel McCormick.
City-wide, the blue box "contamination rate" — the amount of dirty, unrecyclable blue box items that end up trashed — has more than doubled to 14 per cent over five years. That trend has already prompted the city to ban unmarketable black plastic, coffee cup lids and Styrofoam from the blue box as of May 1.
But multi-rez recycling is an "even bigger challenge," McCormick said, because individual building owners and superintendents are collecting and temporarily storing huge amounts of paper, plastic and metals from dozens or even hundreds of families at a time.
(While small multi-unit buildings sometimes still receive traditional curbside blue box collection, apartment buildings more often amass paper, glass, plastic and metal in large "blue carts" or Dumpster-type storage bins.)
That means a few family-sized boxes of poorly sorted, soiled or trash-filled recyclables can easily contaminate a large storage bin of otherwise clean materials.
It also is not always easy to convince upper-floor apartment tenants — especially those with easy access to a garbage chute — to carry separated recyclables down several floors to a blue cart, a 2017 report found
The city embarked on a ramped up recycling educational campaign last year designed to educate both building superintendents and tenants, including a focus on offering materials in a larger variety of languages.
McCormick said the city will start its ramped up tower recycling enforcement with more education — including a "reminder letter" to building owners and superintendents.
If that doesn't work, the city will leave behind blue carts full of contaminated recyclables — and building owners will be responsible to either clean up the mess or deliver it to the dump themselves.
The city anticipates a "short term" spike in complaints as a result, but the memo stresses the effort will be worth it to cut the amount of failed blue box detritus headed to the dump.
mvandongen@thespec.com
905-526-3241 | @Mattatthespec
905-526-3241 | @Mattatthespec
Bad news, apartment-dwellers: more than half the stuff you try to recycle is ending up in the dump.
The latest statistics show the city's recycling plant "rejected" 52-percent of would-be recyclables collected by the truckload from apartments and condo towers so far this year as too "contaminated."
That means the final destination for your failed blue box offerings is actually the Glanbrook dump.
The city told councillors in a new memo it will ramp up enforcement on trashy tower recycling — in particular, by refusing to collect contaminated loads until they're cleaned up by a building superintendent.
The memo didn't specify how many tonnes of paper, plastic, metal and glass are lost to those rejected truckloads. But "multi-residential" buildings, including condo towers and apartment highrises, represents about a third of all city dwellings and more than 150,000 residents.
The woeful recycling numbers are partly due to last year's crackdown on imported recyclables in China that effectively eliminated the market giant as a buyer for Canadian paper and plastic, said waste collection manager Joel McCormick.
City-wide, the blue box "contamination rate" — the amount of dirty, unrecyclable blue box items that end up trashed — has more than doubled to 14 per cent over five years. That trend has already prompted the city to ban unmarketable black plastic, coffee cup lids and Styrofoam from the blue box as of May 1.
But multi-rez recycling is an "even bigger challenge," McCormick said, because individual building owners and superintendents are collecting and temporarily storing huge amounts of paper, plastic and metals from dozens or even hundreds of families at a time.
(While small multi-unit buildings sometimes still receive traditional curbside blue box collection, apartment buildings more often amass paper, glass, plastic and metal in large "blue carts" or Dumpster-type storage bins.)
That means a few family-sized boxes of poorly sorted, soiled or trash-filled recyclables can easily contaminate a large storage bin of otherwise clean materials.
It also is not always easy to convince upper-floor apartment tenants — especially those with easy access to a garbage chute — to carry separated recyclables down several floors to a blue cart, a 2017 report found
The city embarked on a ramped up recycling educational campaign last year designed to educate both building superintendents and tenants, including a focus on offering materials in a larger variety of languages.
McCormick said the city will start its ramped up tower recycling enforcement with more education — including a "reminder letter" to building owners and superintendents.
If that doesn't work, the city will leave behind blue carts full of contaminated recyclables — and building owners will be responsible to either clean up the mess or deliver it to the dump themselves.
The city anticipates a "short term" spike in complaints as a result, but the memo stresses the effort will be worth it to cut the amount of failed blue box detritus headed to the dump.
mvandongen@thespec.com
905-526-3241 | @Mattatthespec
905-526-3241 | @Mattatthespec
Bad news, apartment-dwellers: more than half the stuff you try to recycle is ending up in the dump.
The latest statistics show the city's recycling plant "rejected" 52-percent of would-be recyclables collected by the truckload from apartments and condo towers so far this year as too "contaminated."
That means the final destination for your failed blue box offerings is actually the Glanbrook dump.
The city told councillors in a new memo it will ramp up enforcement on trashy tower recycling — in particular, by refusing to collect contaminated loads until they're cleaned up by a building superintendent.
The memo didn't specify how many tonnes of paper, plastic, metal and glass are lost to those rejected truckloads. But "multi-residential" buildings, including condo towers and apartment highrises, represents about a third of all city dwellings and more than 150,000 residents.
The woeful recycling numbers are partly due to last year's crackdown on imported recyclables in China that effectively eliminated the market giant as a buyer for Canadian paper and plastic, said waste collection manager Joel McCormick.
City-wide, the blue box "contamination rate" — the amount of dirty, unrecyclable blue box items that end up trashed — has more than doubled to 14 per cent over five years. That trend has already prompted the city to ban unmarketable black plastic, coffee cup lids and Styrofoam from the blue box as of May 1.
But multi-rez recycling is an "even bigger challenge," McCormick said, because individual building owners and superintendents are collecting and temporarily storing huge amounts of paper, plastic and metals from dozens or even hundreds of families at a time.
(While small multi-unit buildings sometimes still receive traditional curbside blue box collection, apartment buildings more often amass paper, glass, plastic and metal in large "blue carts" or Dumpster-type storage bins.)
That means a few family-sized boxes of poorly sorted, soiled or trash-filled recyclables can easily contaminate a large storage bin of otherwise clean materials.
It also is not always easy to convince upper-floor apartment tenants — especially those with easy access to a garbage chute — to carry separated recyclables down several floors to a blue cart, a 2017 report found
The city embarked on a ramped up recycling educational campaign last year designed to educate both building superintendents and tenants, including a focus on offering materials in a larger variety of languages.
McCormick said the city will start its ramped up tower recycling enforcement with more education — including a "reminder letter" to building owners and superintendents.
If that doesn't work, the city will leave behind blue carts full of contaminated recyclables — and building owners will be responsible to either clean up the mess or deliver it to the dump themselves.
The city anticipates a "short term" spike in complaints as a result, but the memo stresses the effort will be worth it to cut the amount of failed blue box detritus headed to the dump.
mvandongen@thespec.com
905-526-3241 | @Mattatthespec
905-526-3241 | @Mattatthespec