We’re on a mission to reduce contamination!
As the City of Abbotsford continues to grow and develop, finding ways to reduce waste is an increasingly important part of minimizing the City’s impact on our environment. Abbotsford has an average of 14% contamination in our curbside recycling (based on recycling audits completed May 2021-August 2022). Recycle BC has identified that the City has an overall contamination rate of 14.39% based on audits completed May 2021 – August 2022. This is an unacceptable level of contamination within the Recycle BC program and the City is required to take various actions to track and reduce contamination.
Recycle BC is a non-profit organization that is responsible for recycling of residential Packaging and Printed Paper in British Columbia. Municipalities like Abbotsford participate in this recycling program and receive funds to collect these materials on behalf of Recycle BC. This keeps recycling affordable for residents and ensures more materials get recycled! However, when contamination rates grow, Recycle BC can’t properly sort the material, which means not as much of it can be used by manufacturers who turn our recycling into new items. To meet the requirements of Recycle BC, continue participating in the recycling program, and avoid fines for contamination we need everyone to do their part to recycle properly.
To help the community reduce contamination and keep the recycling program affordable and sustainable the City has developed a Contamination Remediation Plan with the goal to significantly reduce our contamination in the 2023 and into the future.
What does this mean for you?
For the City to successfully reduce its recycling contamination rate, and to ensure the curbside recycling program remains affordable and sustainable, all residents must do their part to recycle correctly.