For Immediate Release
Oct. 20, 2008, 2:54 p.m.
Waste Reduction Week Challenge: Trim Your Waste
City Aims To Divert 65 Per Cent Of Residential Waste From Landfill
Celebrate Canada's Waste Reduction Week Oct. 19 to 25: help trim the amount of waste the City sends to landfill by 14 per cent by making sure your household is recycling everything it can.
The City's goal is to divert 65 per cent of its residential waste to landfill by 2012. Kingstonians diverted about 42 per cent of their waste from landfill according to 2005 Waste Diversion Ontario data. But, that data also showed that Kingstonians could have diverted 14 per cent more of their waste through recycling.
While the implementation of the Green Bin organic waste program (coming this spring) will help Kingston improve its diversion rate, you can challenge yourself in the meantime to find the 14 per cent more recyclable items in your household waste.
Make sure you recycle everything you can, including:
- Plastic bags. Tie your clean plastic bags inside an empty one and put them out in your Grey Box. Better yet, get a reusable shopping bag.
- Put tetra-paks, milk and juice containers, and paper towel and toilet paper cores out with your Grey Box.
- Junk mail goes in your Grey Box.
- All #1 plastics with screw tops (like water and pop bottles, and peanut butter jars), go in your Blue Box, along with #2, #4, #5, and #6 plastics. Bottoms-up: check the plastic content (#) of a container before you buy a product. If it's not recyclable, don't buy it.
- Styrofoam is recyclable (but not styrofoam peanuts - they are too small to process).
Go to cityofkingston.ca/recycling to find out what else your household could be recycling and to look-up your personalized recycling collection calendar - and look for more recycling tips in the Kingston Whig-Standard during Waste Reduction Week.
While you are online, you can also participate in the Integrated Waste Management Study - which includes a number of waste processing options now under consideration - now posted for Your Opinion input at cityofkingston.ca/wastestudy.
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Media contact information:
Tim Laprade, Public Education Coordinator, 613-546-4291, ext. 1229; City of Kingston's media hotline, 613-546-4291, ext 2300.
