Blue-bag dresses 1st in new program to boost St. John's recycling

Blue recycling bags are seldom seen on runways, but the City of St. John's wants more people using its curbside recycling program so it's turning to fashion to get the message out.

The Blue is the new Black campaign launched Wednesday night, with models showing off dresses made entirely out of blue plastic recycling bags.

• Decline in St. John's curbside recycling prompts awareness campaign

Paul Mackey, deputy city manager for public works, said the idea came from a push to get out of an advertising rut.

"We wanted to get something different that would appeal to people and would attract people's attention so I think this was a great idea, something original and unique and it seemed to go over very well tonight."

Barry Buckle, instructor with College of the North Atlantic's Textiles: Craft and Apparel Design program, said his students were up for, what turned out to be, a bit of a challenge.

"You're trying to sew plastic — and thin plastic — a fabric that's typically not a durable fabric so that was a challenge, and then it was a challenge to manipulate fabric to make it work and to give you a look that you wanted," he said.

Drop in recycling participation

The curbside recycling program has been ongoing for about five years, but Mackey said there's been a 13 per cent drop in people using it within the last year or two.

"It's not unexpected because the initial advertising promotion by the media and so on, it kind of wears off after a while, we haven't been doing it as much," he said.

"So we came up this year and decided throughout this year we'd do a bunch of different events to try to get people back into it, get some interest again and up the participation rate."

Mackey said the fashion show was just the first in a series of events the city will hold to try and boost the program.