That’s some good news from your municipal recycling service for 2015.
Since asking residents to return their empty wine, beer and spirit bottles to The Beer Store to get their deposit back and in an effort to save municipal taxes, Quinte Waste Solutions reduced their shipments of glass by 45% over 2014 shipments, or 200 metric tonnes less. This equals approximately $85,000 in savings.
“Glass is on a natural decline as more products switch to plastic, and we’ve seen a decline of roughly 11% per year since 2011.” Mentions Dan Orr, Communications Coordinator for Quinte Waste Solutions. “But a 45% drop is very significant, and we would like to thank everyone for doing their part by keeping deposit-return glass out of the blue box.”
Quinte Waste Solutions received funding this year from the Continuous Improvement Fund to study the feasibility of take-out cup recycling. Currently take-out cups, including coffee cups are not accepted in Quinte’s blue box.
“Take-out cups have been an issue for quite some time. We’re waiting on the findings from the study, but we’ll have a clearer picture in the New Year if this is a material that we will be able to accept or not.” Says Dan.
The battery bag program continues to be a big success, and it will continue in the Spring and Fall of 2016. The Battery Buddy, a first in Ontario and beyond, which is being piloted in Tweed and a neighbourhood in Belleville is being studied until the end of 2016 with the potential that this year-round curbside battery bucket will be common place on residents’ blue boxes.
Quinte Waste Solutions is also reminding residents over the holidays to break down and bundle their corrugated cardboard, and to break up and clear-bag large pieces of Styrofoam to make sure they fit in the truck. There are more holiday recycling tips at quinterecycling.org
And a quick reminder for anyone who’s recycling day is on a Friday. Collection scheduled for Friday December 25th, or January 1st, will be collected instead on Saturday December 26th, and January 2nd. No other days are affected.