Starting June 1, the City of North Battleford will enforce recycling rules that prohibit non-recyclable materials from being placed in recycling bins. Individuals contaminating the recyclable stream will now be held accountable and issued fines.
The city points out non-recyclable waste materials placed in the blue recycling bins will contaminate its contents making it no longer recyclable. These contaminated materials are now considered trash and will be sent to the Waste Management Facility.
Making matters worse, the city states the individual blue bins are picked up and loaded into the trucks, where one contaminated blue bin has the potential to contaminate the entire truckload of recyclable material. The more recyclables that are diverted from the landfill result in decreased operating costs and extend the current cell’s lifespan at the Waste Management Facility.
“Waste being placed into recycling bins has a big and expensive impact and affects all taxpayers in the city,” states the city’s website.
Fines start at $100 for the first offence, $200 for the second offence, $300 for a third offence. Infractions after the third offence may jump to $5,000 per additional offence. The City Solicitor will assist with enforcing any tickets that are not paid through the court.
Resources:
Residents can use Recycle Coach from the City’s website to determine what materials belong in the blue recycle bin and what is non-recyclable and belongs in the black trash bin. Visit www.cityofnb.ca/resident_services/waste_recycling/what_goes_where_.html to use Recycle Coach today. Recycle Coach is available for install from the iOS and Android stores for your phone and tablet. Residents can also install Recycle Coach on their voice-activated Google Assistant or Amazon Alexa devices to find out what materials are recyclable or not.
