Congratulations are due Janet Katerberg of Drayton, a recent recipient of Wellington County’s Gold Medal Recycler award.
The award, which is actually a county recycling box coloured gold instead of blue, is presented to county residents whose blue boxes, placed out for collection, are identified by the collection drivers as being exceptional. Materials placed in the blue boxes are clean, properly sorted, bundled where appropriate and have no unacceptable items.
Each year, 25 gold boxes are handed out to deserving Wellington County residents.
The county officials who came up with the concept should also be recognized for providing a way to remind local residents not only that recycling helps to reduce waste, but that doing it right helps even more.
There are two ways to recycle materials in Wellington. Some residents have curbside collection, and all residents can use county waste facilities to drop off their sorted blue box materials. Residents who take their material to a facility are eligible for the Gold Medal Recycler program, as well as those with curbside pickup.
It is important that materials be prepared and separated properly to allow them to be recycled as efficiently as possible. This also ensures recyclables are in the best possible condition for processing and sale to end markets, which helps keep the program cost-effective.
There are good reasons certain materials are not accepted in blue boxes. For example, items like drinking glasses, plates, coffee cups, window glass, ceramics, light bulbs and mirrors have a different melting point than glass containers and can’t be processed with them.
Other items, such as pots and pans, aerosol and paint cans, hangers, cutlery, scrap metal and snack/chip bags are not accepted because of contamination, attachments which cannot be removed, or because there is no market for the material.
Complete details on how to recycle to the county’s gold standard can be found on the county’s website at www.wellington.ca.
Patrick Raftis
