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Local communities participate in TNRD recycling project aimed at visitors

New TNRD project aims to help visitors keep up their recycling good habits while on holiday.

Ashcroft, Cache Creek, Clinton, and Lytton are four of the communities encouraging visitors to recycle, through the Thompson-Nicola Regional District’s 2012 Seasonal Resident and Visitor Recycling Pilot Project.

A free Glad Blue Bag recycling pack, meant to give those who are vacationing an opportunity to recycle, is now available to anyone wanting to help the environment.

“When people go on vacation, they typically have to put their recycling practices on hold while they are away from home,” said Martin Dickson, TNRD environmental health services technologist. “We wanted to give them the opportunity and get people recycling in the first place when they are out.”

The sample packs, which include a Glad Blue Bag and information about what and where to recycle, allow people to drop off their recycling at transfer stations. An entry form that comes with the recycling pack can be submitted at TNRD recycling stations for the chance at a Coleman camping starter kit, Dickson said.

The packs are available at the Village Offices in Ashcroft, Cache Creek, Clinton, and Lytton. They can also be obtained from the Information Centre in Ashcroft and from the Museum in Clinton.

Village of Clinton Office Assistant June Bourgo said that the packs are proving popular with campers, as well as with seasonal visitors staying in area cottages and cabins.

“Every time we fill a square metre of a landfill with garbage, that’s reducing its lifetime,” Dickson said. “If we can’t keep garbage out, which is what would typically happen if people are out in the TNRD and creating garbage, then our landfills are going to fill up that much quicker.

“By offering this recycling pilot to seasonal residents and visitors, the expectation is that the lifespan of landfills is extended and tax dollars are not as impacted by the region’s transient population,” the TNRD stated in a release. “It also helps create a more sustainable and environmentally responsible waste management system — now and for generations to come.”

Barbara Roden