The city of Lethbridge’s Waste and Recycling program is coming up on its nine-month anniversary, but many residents are still unsure of how to properly utilize the system.
Steve Rozee, manager of Lethbridge’s Waste and Recycling Centre, says he sees examples of improper disposal on a regular basis.
Dangerous items found at the Materials Recovery Facility (MRF) that shouldn’t be tossed into residential blue carts have included knives, food waste and even live bullets.
Rozee said that improper disposal can cause damage to equipment and even put MRF employees’ safety at risk.
“We’ve had a couple of injuries. We’ve had an individual get cut very badly through their cut-proof gloves by glass that was in mixed plastics recycling,” Rozee said.
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Though much of the sorting of waste is done by machines at the MRF, employees are responsible for sorting many materials by hand to ensure everything ends up in its proper place.
Because dangerous materials are often placed in blue bins along with safe materials, employees face the daily risk of coming into contact with potential safety risks.
“The program is for packaging and printed paper, so, the boxes and metals we intend to receive are from packaged goods and such – not just any anything plastic or metal. So, that’s one of the mistakes people are making,” Rozee said.
Though the city tries to cover all its bases when it comes to safety, cooperation and awareness from the community is key to the recycling program’s success.
The city offers many resources for Lethbridge residents who are unsure of how to properly utilize their curbside recycling.
An extensive breakdown of the do’s and don’ts of residential blue bins can be found at curside.lethbridge.ca. Additionally, residents can access the Waste Wizard through the city’s website and educate themselves beyond the blue bin, with information on proper disposal of nearly any material.
Rozee says employee safety is a priority at the MRF. All workers within the facility are required to wear full personal protective equipment and the state-of-the-art design of the facility itself mitigates issues like air quality concerns.
Improper disposal will continue to be an on-going issue at the MRF, but according to Rozee, things could be worse.
“Mostly, we’ve been pretty lucky. We’ve been open for eight months with only a few injuries. We haven’t had any fires, which are common in this sort of facility especially with improper disposal of things like batteries and propane tanks,” Rozee said.
