Islanders will soon have a new option for the disposal of household metal items. The Honourable Ron MacKinley, Minister responsible for the Island Waste Management Corporation (IWMC), today announced that the Waste Watch Program will begin allowing customers to dispose of small household metal items through blue bag collection.
“Beginning on March 1 Waste Watch will introduce more flexible service options for customers to safely dispose of household metal products,” says Minister MacKinley. “This will be far more convenient for residents and it will help our One Island Community continue to be as green and environmentally friendly as possible.”
As of March 1 residential customers will be able to have their metal items collected with their blue bags as part of the recycling stream or drop them off for free on Saturday mornings at their local Waste Watch Drop Off Centre (WWDC). In addition, the Metals Week of Spring and Fall Cleanup will be replaced with an extra week of compost collection to help manage the volume of excess yard and garden debris generated during those periods. Currently customers have three options for the disposal of metal items; placing items curbside during Metals Week of the Annual Spring and Fall Cleanup, dropping off metal items to their local WWDC, and visiting their local scrap metal dealer.
“These changes will give more flexibility to customers by allowing more opportunities to have metal items collected at curbside through the recycling stream along with increasing capacity to address excess yard and garden debris during peak seasonal periods,” said IWMC CEO Gerry Moore.
Small, clean, dry items containing more than 50 percent metal will be accepted in Blue Bag #2 along with plastic, glass and can items. Examples of items containing more than 50 percent metal include pots and pans, baking sheets, metal cutlery, small tools, and small appliances such as toasters, kettles, and irons. Only metal items smaller than 1.2 metres in length or less than 22 kilograms can be placed curbside on blue bag collection day and multiple items must be securely bundled and tied. Examples of larger metal items would include bicycles, push lawn mowers, wheelbarrows, microwaves, kitchen chairs and barbecues (minus propane tanks).