Beyond the Blue Cart - London Drugs' Recycle Program

Did you know you can't just throw anything you want in your Blue Cart, in any way you want, and expect it to be recycled properly? In fact, if you want your recycling processed as successfully as possible, you should be following the city's guidelines, including bundling shredded paper and plastic bags in a clear bag, and never bundling anything else. If you'd like to understand why these guidelines exist, check out this video. I found that understanding how the sorting machines worked helped guide my understanding of what I could and could not put in my bin.

But what about the things that you can't put in your blue cart, but you have a feeling there is a better place for them than the landfill? Those are the sorts of things I've been encountering this month as I challenged myself to de-clutter 100 items from my house. It started easy enough, with old product manuals and items that could be donated, but I ended up with a pile I didn't know what to do with.

Enter the London Drugs Recycle Program. You can bring your hard-to-recycle items to the Customer Service counter of London Drugs stores, as per the list above.

So what did I finally get out of my house?

• 2 expired Carbon Monoxide detectors
• 2 expired smoke detectors
• 4 printer cartridges I have been carting around since HP stopped letting you mail your empties back (we have since gotten rid of our home printer)
• A broken hair clipper
• 4 old light bulbs
• A whole bunch of dead batteries
• An old toaster unsuitable for donation (serious fire risk)

How satisfying!

Have you found places to recycle items that can't go in your blue cart? Leave a comment!