Halifax area recycling guides mailed in plastic

Lower Sackville Counc. Steve Craig says he wants to get to the bottom of whether the city could have avoided wrapping its recycling mailout in plastic last week.

The Halifax Regional Municipality's recycling guide was delivered to every household, wrapped in approximately 170,000 bags.

Craig sorts his recycling and said he never gave a second thought to the packaging around green guide until one of his constituents noted how odd it was.

"He said, 'That's not right.' And I said, 'I didn't think of that, but you're absolutely correct,'" Craig said.

The green cart schedule, the "What Goes Where" brochure, and a newsletter all came wrapped in clear plastic. It's the first time the city has used plastic this way.

CBC News calculated if you added up all 170,000 bags, they would weigh 680 kilograms.

It is the first time the city has used plastic this way. Shannon Betts of the city's solid waste division says they had to make sure the flyers were seen and not tossed in the recycling.

"It was really a trade-off and a balance,” she said, adding she understands the irony.

To mail the items separately to every home in the Halifax region would have been too expensive, she said

"The cost to send it is about $20,000," she said. "So by combining these two pieces together we were able to avoid $20,000 in postage costs."

Craig wonders if the city could put more information online or get residents to opt-in for mailing. The solid waste division said it's exploring some of those options.