Saskatchewan’s provincial recycler has vastly expanded its plastics program. Virtually all plastic bags and packaging can now be dropped off at any SARCAN location in the province. The list includes Styrofoam meat trays and bags from frozen vegetables, potato chips and water softener salt. “I have combined about two month’s worth of our plastic into this one bag here and so it’s all sorts of things like the overwrap from toilet paper and paper towels and flats from beverage containers to bread bags to chip bags,” explained Jane Hubbard-Richards, culture coordinator for SARCAN. “For the foam packaging there is just one little step of sorting it into coloured foam and white foam and your coloured foam can go into the bag and your white foam can go into the bag.” The program began in December and has already gathered 7,000 pounds of plastic products. SARCAN says the program covers plastics not accepted by blue cart programs, an opportunity customers gladly welcome. “That’s awesome. The more that people can recycle, the better so that’s exciting,” Matthew Schmichel said. Gaylene Galenzoski echoed the sentiment. “I would. I definitely would recycle. I like to recycle everything that I can,” she said. Rodney Mackay is another customer that would take advantage of the program. “Yeah, that’s good. I have a lot of styrofoam from boxes that I could get rid of,” he said. It’s a major program expansion for SARCAN which is best know for accepting pop and beer cans which come with a refundable deposit. Front line recycling staff say that remains the most popular. “It depends which depot you go to. Some people might have more liquor bottles, some might have their favourite flavours but mostly they want their money,” said Deidre Heisler, a SARCAN staff member. Saskatchewan now has extensive recycling programs. With community blue bin and green bin programs and now expanded plastic recycling, there is little left to throw in the garbage.
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