Colchester County now recycling Styrofoam and textiles

Curbside pickup in Colchester County now includes Styrofoam, old towels and running shoes, but the person responsible for the switch says diverting those items is not an easy one for all municipalities.

Most homes across Nova Scotia already have garbage being separated into garbage, organics, plastic recycling and fibre recycling. However, Styrofoam and textiles are usually destined for the dump.

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On May 1, Colchester County began curbside pickup of textiles, including clothing, linens, shoes and stuffed animals — but not anything wet or oily.

Nearly three weeks in and the county has already diverted more than 680 kilograms of textiles from the landfill.

"I'm always looking at what's going into our landfill that shouldn't be … and textiles are one of those that seemed easy that we could remove," Jann McFarlane, the material recovery facility manager for Colchester County, told CBC's Information Morning on Friday.

Textiles are to be placed with fibre such as cardboard.

A month before, on April 1, the county started a program to pick up Styrofoam, which is placed with plastics. (Packing peanuts and spray foam insulation are not collected.)

Make it as easy as possible for people

McFarlane says the idea was to make the process as easy as possible on residents.

"I don't want to have to take it to a different area and I think that's great for when you have that full bag but when the dryer just ate one of your socks and you have that one sock. What are you going to do with it?" 

McFarlane said the switch in Colchester was relatively easy, however, she says it's not as straightforward for other places.

"Every facility works differently ... we have no automation on our fibre line, so it's actually people watching it the whole time," she said.

People will still donate to charities 

McFarlane said she's not concerned that people will stop donating used clothing to charities that get income from donated textiles.

Though textile recycling is only currently available to people living in Colchester County, McFarlane says her facility also services Antigonish, Guysborough, Pictou, the District of St. Mary's and the Town of Windsor.

In all, she estimates about 4,000 tonnes of textiles from those areas are going into the landfill every year.

The facility is still figuring out where it's sorted textiles will go. The options are that reusable items will be sold to thrift stores, while items that cannot be reused will either be cut into rags or used in recycled, blown-in insulation for homes.

McFarlane says the switch to recycling textiles didn't require any extra equipment, but two extra people were hired to help sort.