It’s finally here.
Today is the day that curbside recycling starts in Smithers.
Those residents who usually put out their garbage on Monday morning were hauling a brand new blue bin full of recyclables to the curb today instead, with other pickup times scheduled throughout the week.
Smithers mayor Taylor Bachrach says he has been getting a lot of positive feedback about the start of curbside recycling.
“Everyone is really excited. I have been seeing photos out on Facebook of the street lined with blue carts and I think people are pretty pumped to see this finally happening.”
He says his neighbourhood will be joining the curbside program tomorrow.
“We will be putting our bin out tomorrow morning. My nine-year-old daughter is in charge of dragging the bin out to the curb. The recycling bin is quite a bit bigger than our current garbage bin so she is going to have to do a bit of extra work.”
Bachrach is reminding residents that this week there will be no garbage pickup as Smithers transitions to alternating garbage and recycling pick up weeks.
He says the adjustment to garbage pick up every other week may be hard for some at first but once people get into the habit of recycling more items they should have less in the garbage bins.
“We are really asking people to try the new program for a few weeks and see the difference that the recycling is going to make on the garbage volume. There is a huge number of different products that are recyclable under this new program and that is going to reduce the volume in the garbage bins considerably.”