Recycle BC Now Accepts Single-Use And Packaging-Like Products For Recycling

A lot more plastic can now go out into the recycling.

It’s the province’s attempt at cleaning up single-use plastic and packaging products by allowing residents to fill up their residential blue box or drop more items off at participating recycling depots.

These items include products that are generally disposed of after a single or one-time use, such as plastic sandwich bags or throw-away party cups, bowls, and plates.

Single-use plastics are one of the most common items found on B.C. shores.

These regulations are separate from the federal ban on the manufacturing and importing of single-use plastics, which came into effect last month. The province says its regulatory changes cover a broader category of single-use products and further ensures that exemptions to the ban are recycled.

Newly accepted blue-box items include:

* plastic plates, bowls and cups

* plastic cutlery and straws

* plastic food storage containers

* plastic clothes hangers

* paper plates, bowls, and cups (with thin plastic lining)

* aluminum foil, baking dishes and pie plates

Other items that won’t go in the blue box, but instead to recycling depots only, include:

* plastic sandwich and freezer bags, shrink wrap, bubble wrap and reusable grocery bags.

B.C. regulates the largest number of residential packaging and products in Canada through its extended producer responsibility programs, where companies and producers are responsible for the collection and recycling of the products they create.

During the next four years, B.C. will expand the programs to include mattresses, electric-vehicle batteries, and medical sharps - or syringes - as well as more moderately hazardous products, such as compressed-fuel canisters.

View the full material list at RecycleBC.ca/Materials.