Surrey Launches Educational Campaign to Help Reduce Recycling Contamination

Surrey, BC – Not everything can be put into the blue bin for recycling. In an effort to curb recycling contamination, the City of Surrey has started an educational campaign to remind residents what is accepted in the blue bin and what items are not. 

“When non-recyclable items are improperly placed in the blue bins, it has the opposite effect intended by increasing the amount of waste in our landfills,” said Mayor Doug McCallum. “That’s why it is important that only items that can be recycled be placed in the blue bins. I urge everyone to do their part to ensure that items placed in the curbside recycling collection belong there. This simple step will help to keep Surrey as a green, clean and thriving city.”

Non-recyclables mistakenly placed in blue bins have to be manually sorted in order to ensure that the properly placed items are recycled into quality products. Surrey has launched a Waste Wizard to make it easier for residents to determine if an item should be recycled, donated, taken to a recycling depot, or put in the waste bin. 

Accepted items that can go in the City of Surrey’s blue bins:

• paper products and packaging
• plastic packaging
• metal containers and packaging

Not accepted items:

• plastic bags/film plastics
• hazardous materials (sharp items, gas canisters, batteries, etc.)
• personal hygiene products
• foam
• scrap metal (pots/pans)
• small electronics (toasters, blenders, etc.)
• clothing
• books
• Tupperware containers

For more information on how to recycle and sort waste, visit surrey.ca/sortingwaste