Recycling’s going grey

Image by: Ivanna Ko

Beginning in October, Kingston residents will have the added responsibility of splitting up their recycling and alternating between grey and blue box collection. The new grey boxes will be used for paper and cardboard, leaving the original blue boxes for bottles and plastic containers.

Other areas of the country have already tested this method but Kingston has only recently adopted the model claiming that it’ll be more efficient, will assist with sorting and will lower costs.

Most students who live off campus have unique living arrangements, where between one and 12 friends may live together under one roof. With each person generating a substantial amount of waste on his or her own, it’s common for bins to be overflowing each week. Because students will have to alternate boxes, they may be deterred from recycling all together.

When recycling bins become full but students are unable to put them on the curb to be removed, they may end up throwing out items that they might have otherwise recycled.

The addition of the grey box for paper and cardboard is welcome; it will limit the hassle of attempting to tie up bundles with pesky string or using plastic bags.

The greater concern is how recycling will only be collected every two weeks. It’s a good idea to separate paper and plastic recycling, but they should still both be collected on a weekly basis.

People should be encouraged to recycle, but with the additional hassle created by the limitations, uncollected recyclables could take up so much space that students may simply give up.

The unfortunate reality is that the more obstacles or restrictions the city places on recycling, the less likely that people will recycle: the harder they make it, the lower the participation will be.

Placing greater restrictions on the amount of garbage a household can have picked up would be a more environmentally friendly option, and even a means of encouraging increased recycling and composting.

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