By Blair Crawford, Ottawa Citizen
Ottawa residents won’t see any changes in the curbside pickup of their black and blue boxes next month when the city becomes one of the first in the province to switch to Ontario’s new Individual Producer Responsibility recycling program.
...“It’s a very good step to make sure producers are responsible,” said Alice Irene Whittaker of Ecology Ottawa. “It’s good in principle and we think it will be good in practice, but I always emphasize that recycling is not the answer. It’s one part of a larger solution.”
Whittaker says people can reduce waste and the need to recycle by simply buying less, using items longer or sharing them with other neighbours through programs like the Ottawa tool library.
“That will ensure items never even get to that (recycling) stage,” she said.