Yorkton celebrating Earth Day with recycling recommendations

SaskAbilities encourages recycling in Yorkton WATCH: Sask. Abilities is encouraging residents in Yorkton to recycle. Kaylyn Whibbs explains.

YORKTON — Today marks the 51st anniversary of Earth Day and Yorkton is celebrating by reminding residents of the importance of recycling.

Earth Day is celebrated annually on April 22 to inspire people to protect the environment.

"We want to save this planet for our children and our children's children and if everybody can just start recycling and recycling properly," said Sandra Bilan, who works for SaskAbilities RecyclAbility in Yorkton.

"Let's try and clean up our city to start with and go from outside there."

SaskAbilities and the City of Yorkton provide residents with many options when it comes to recycling, from curbside pickup, to drop off sites and facilities.

"It's very important that they read the signs and they really get themselves educated on what is acceptable and what can go to landfill, what can't and make this place safe for all our children and children to come," said Bilan.

RecyclAbility accepts plastics labelled one through seven, tin, cardboard, glass, as well as florescent lightbulbs and tubes. It also runs an Eco Centre, which can accept oil jugs and five gallon pails.

Bilan said most things are recyclable to some degree, and recommends using the website or RecycleCoach app to decipher what needs to go to which facility.

SaskAbilities also runs SARCAN, which takes back anything with a deposit.

Jeanifer Moreira, a supervisor at SARCAN Recycling, said getting money back is often an incentive for people to recycle, but it’s also nice to see people doing their part.

"You can see that we recycle over 10 million containers [per year]…so I think Yorkton is doing really good," added Moreira.

RecyclAbility carries its own weight even without the monetary draw. Bilan said between 2019 and 2020, they took in about 41 metric tonnes of clear glass and three metric tonnes of coloured.

Drop off bins on site at RecyclAbility. (Kaylyn Whibbs/CTV Yorkton)

"Teach your kids to do the right thing by bringing the containers to the right place to get recycled," said Moreira.

The blue community bins, which are free for everyone to use, situated in the parking lots of the Gallagher Centre, Parkland Mall and Prairie Harvest Christian Life Centre took in almost 435 metric tonnes of product.

The curbside Prairie Harvest program took in about 600 metric tonnes, with the cages at RecyclAbility taking in over 160 metric tonnes.