I watched the CBC Documentary on Plastic that was on a month ago, and I learned two shocking things.

1. Half of the plastic items I was washing and putting into the bluebins are not recycled by municipalities. In fact, very few plastic things are actually recycled by Ottawa.

2. If the recycling sorters (both manual and machine) miss something and the wrong item gets into the wrong pile to be shipped out/sold and ultimately recylcled, the entire bale of flattened bottles (for example) is thrown out for being “contaminated”.

So I understand a bit more why the recycling guys are picky about what they pick up.

The other thing I found is that sometimes my recycling didn’t get picked up because it was behind a car, or “hidden” by a garbage can, or whatever. There really wasn’t a reason I could discern.

You’re right,I’ll try the Councillor.

Thank You,
Gina

Another thing you could do is e-mail your councillor (you can do this via the ottawa.ca. website) and ask him/her to investigate. I live east-end, and I can tell you that the councillors at my end are really prompt and helpful when you e-mail. They will probably pass you directly to the waste manaagement department, but they are helpful, too.

Recycling in your neighbourhood sounds like a hassle! It isn’t like that everywhere in the city… you might want to consider calling the municipality’s 3-1-1 number and giving them some feedback about the problems you’ve been having. Grumpy workers nonetheless, I do have some sympathy for the people who do recycling: they work very hard at a fairly thankless job. Due perhaps to the company trying to cut costs, what used to be a 2 person job is now done by just one worker, who drives the truck and empties the bins. They are pushed to work very quickly, which is probably the cause of their tossing the recycle bins (and breaking them!)