Okay, so last week's move by council to put restrictions on some consumer plastics wasn't met with universal praise. But it's hard to argue with this week's news that the Blue Bin Program is expanding to include more of the items that once had to fill Toronto's garbage cans.
Most Foam Polystyrene Can Now Be Recycled
| Washed and ready for recycling Photo © Marilyn Campbell |
Just last month there was a rather long conversation in our kitchen about the correct disposal of the foam trays from packaged meat.
As of Tuesday December 9th, the correct place for those will indeed be the recycling bin. City of Toronto's Solid Waste Management has announced that the following foam polystyrene items can be recycled (although you should be washing all of the food off first!):
- Foam meat trays
- Foam takeout food containers
- Foam plates
- Foam egg cartons
- Foam coffee cups
- Solid white foam packaging (from around electronics, small appliances etc)
Plastic Shopping Bag Recycling
The other addition to the program is plastic bags from grocery and retail stores. The city asks that you remove any receipts from inside and place all of the bags inside of one bag, the handles of which you can tie together. Of course reducing and reusing is always preferable to recycling, so keep bringing cloth or other bags from home and re-using the plastic ones until they're no good.
You can't recycle any metal grommets, drawstrings, hard plastic handles or other odd features that appear on some retail bags so remove any of those before you recycle the bags. Unfortunately, all other types of plastic bags - such as milk bags, bread bags, dry cleaning bags and sandwich bags - are all still garbage.
More On What You Can and Can't Recycle
For more details on these improvements to the system and on all other things recycling-related, check out the City of Toronto Solid Waste Management website. Are there things you're still not sure how to dispose of properly? Post your recycling and garbage related questions in the comments section below.