What you're putting in the blue bin may cost you more in garbage fees, city warns

Almost a third of what people are throwing in their blue bins in Toronto shouldn't be recycled, and that mistake could cost you a three per cent increase in your garbage collection fees next year, according to city officials.

"We're seeing everything from materials like black plastic ... that are not accepted in our program. Coffee cups, single serve hot beverage cups are also not accepted in our program," said Jim McKay, the general manager of the city's solid waste management service. 

McKay says the city is losing money because recycling plants won't pay for materials contaminated with food waste and other foreign matter. The increased sorting costs are also affecting the city's bottom line, he says. 

Overall, the city says, the problem is projected to cost taxpayers an extra $9.2 million dollars in 2018. The city's Public Works and Infrastructure committee will discuss what to do about the Blue Bin program next Wednesday.

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McKay says part of the problem is that some materials are labelled as recyclable, even though they can't be recycled under Toronto's program. He says that confusion could be part of the reason why about 30 per cent of what's being placed in blue bins should not be there.  

That includes coffee pods, which belong in the garbage, not the compost bin, according to Jaye Robinson, chair of the city's Public Works and Infrastructure Committee, no matter what the manufacturers may tell you.

"It's unfair to the consumer to try and figure out how to dispose of their coffee pod, when they're being told by the company that it's compostable," Robinson said.

Robinson hopes the province will force companies that misinform consumers about recycling to help pay the cost of blue bin programs — something other provinces have already done.

There's also the problem of not knowing what we're really putting in the blue bin. We're now throwing out a huge variety of new types of packaging — mostly plastics, sometimes glued to other materials like metals  — that recycling programs were never meant to deal with.

Meanwhile, the materials that they were designed to collect, sort and resell — newspapers, for example — make up a shrinking proportion of what comes in. 

Making things even more challenging, China, the world's biggest importer of recyclables, closed its doors in January to all but the cleanest and purest recyclable materials from places like Canada. 

These mistakes will cost you 

Both McKay and Robinson say educating Torontonians is the key to solving the problem, although they admit that it's too early in the process to know what form that education will take.

In the meantime, Torontonians can figure out what's recyclable and what isn't by consulting the Waste Wizard on the city's website.

"We need to get the message out there. We really need the residents to engage and understand what is recycling, what is not recycling, and to make sure to give it a second thought," McKay said.

If the current climate stays as it is and recycling isn't improved by the end of the year, it'll cost you. 

Each resident pays a fee for garbage collection which includes garbage, recycling, organics and other waste programs the city of Toronto provides. Last year, that fee increased by 1.9 per cent, so the city is hoping to fix the problem before making residents pay more.

"If we don't get this under control, the fee will have to go up because of this problem," McKay said. 

"We don't want the residents to have to absorb this cost, so we're trying to be proactive and address this problem as soon as possible," Robinson said.