Condos and apartments officially part of Saskatoon recycling

Officials in Saskatoon say apartments and condominiums are now, officially, a part of the city's recycling effort.

"Containers have been delivered to apartments and condos as Saskatoon's multi-unit residential recycling program is now fully implemented," officials said in a statement released Tuesday. "The multi-unit recycling service provider is Cosmopolitan Industries (Cosmo), a non-profit organization that enhances the quality of life of adults with intellectual disabilities."

According to the city's director of environmental and corporate initiatives, people need to be mindful of what they put in recycling containers.

"Unfortunately, we're finding that about 20 per cent of the material in multi-unit recycling bins is garbage and we want to remind residents to put waste in the right place," Brenda Wallace said in the statement.

Everything from dirty diapers to microwave ovens and drywall has turned up in the recycling bins, according to city and Cosmo officials.

The problem is a lot worse than when city-wide curbside recycling for houses was launched,Wallace said. The contamination rate when it started was about five per cent, and has since gone down to about 3.5 per cent.

Wallace said the difference may come down to differences in the way curbside and multi-unit recycling operates. In the curbside program, there is distinct colour-coding:black carts are for garbage, blue for recycling and green for leaves and grass garden waste.

"In the multi-unit dwelling garbage environment there's a variety of public waste haulers who are hauling garbage but using waste bins that are blue," Wallace explained.

The main clue to look for is the logo which clearlyindicates "recycling", and indicates which materials belong and which don't.

Although the service provider is Cosmo, people in multi-unit buildings like apartments and condos should deposit the same materials that are accepted through the curbside recycling program (where Loraas Recycle is the service provider).

Here is what is included:

• Paper and cardboard.
• Plastic containers with number 1 to 7.
• Milk jugs, laundry jugs, tin cans, aluminum trays and glass.

Officials also noted that clean recyclable material does not need to be sorted or bagged.

Meanwhile, the problem is turning out to be expensive for Cosmo. Managers theresaid it's causing a 15 per cent drop in productivity, since workers have to spend anywhere from half an hour to 1.5 hours each day picking out garbage.

That, along with landfill and tipping fees, is costing the organization $15,000 a month, or about 10 per cent of its revenue from its multi-unit recycling contract.

Every dollar spent on garbage is a dollar that does not go into programs for the people with disabilities, they said.