ATTENTION St Clair Township Residents – Updated

Beginning January 1, 2019, recycling will only be collected in blue recycling boxes. Clear or blue bags will no longer be accepted.

Blue boxes are available to purchase at the St Clair Township Civic Centre Public Works Department and will be sold at a reduced price of $5.75 starting September 1, 2018 until January 1, 2020.

Plastic bags and plastic film will no longer be collected as part of the recycling program in St. Clair Township.  

• This change includes the plastic /blue bags used to hold all recycling materials and placed at the curb.  Therefore only recycling materials within blue recycling boxes will be collected.
• The elimination of plastic bags has been made by the processing contractor and the recycling industry.  Plastic bags (grocery bags, bread bags etc.) are not currently being recycled and create many issues for the sorting facilities.  In the past, previous companies attempted to recycle “plastic film”  but the market shows there is no demand for it.  Most (if not all) plastic film (bags) end up in landfills.
• If plastic film is placed with recycling materials, this contributes to the level of “residual contamination” (portion that must be sorted out and landfilled).  Processing companies begin rejecting loads when residual contamination levels become too high.
• Therefore, the new processing company (Emterra) has stated that no plastic film be used during collection and that only recycled material placed in “blue” recycling boxes will be picked up.