The City of New Westminster hired two Environmental Ambassadors for the summer to get the message out about the importance of all of us being environmental stewards of our city.

Riley Salt and Ella Morrow took on the project with great enthusiasm and diligence, educating the public at every opportunity, particularly about water conservation and recycling.... and they did a whole lot more.

In this video, you will learn about their work regarding recycling in the city. Not only did they educate the public at many events over the summer, they also did an audit of a large sampling of our recycling bins. They wanted to find out how well the city's citizens were doing in following the rules as to what should go into the bins.

They found a relatively high rate of contamination – that is, there were a large number of bins that had many items that shouldn't be in them. And that causes a lot of problems. For example-- the contaminated contents in a garbage truck load -- could render the whole load unrecyclable.

The fact is that much of our recycling is remade into new products right here in British Columbia, despite the rumours that most goes offshore. None does.

For lots of information about what you should and should not recycle, check out the brochure that the city sent out to all residents. Not only does it tell you the schedule for pick up of garbage, recycling and glass, it provides a lot of information about what can and can't go into your bins.