Getting rid of a blender, toaster or vacuum has never been so easy.
Starting Oct.1, a province-wide program called Unplugged will enable B.C. residents to recycle small appliances at more than 100 locations.
At the same time, a fee is being added to the purchase price of small appliances to fund the program.
Unplugged was created to keep the two million small appliances discarded each year out of B.C. landfills, said Mark Kurschner, president of the Product Care Association, a non-profit industry association that manages the program.
Dropping off the items is free. All the collected items will be taken apart and sorted into groups such as plastic, glass and metal. The fee pays for transporting and disassembling the items.
Metals are melted down and recycled into other metal products, while plastics and glass are sorted and sold or reused in various manufacturing processes.
“People can just take (small appliances) in and drop them off,” Kurschner said.
Recycling fees on new items vary from $0.25 for an air freshener up to $10 for a large microwave. For household items such as blenders, coffee makers and bathroom scales, the fee is around $2.
“Of the people we polled well over 90 per cent of them think it’s a good idea (to have this program),” Kurschner said.
Large household appliances such as refrigerators, ovens, dishwashers and washing machines are not part of the project.
The closest small appliance dropoff for people on the West Shore is the View Royal Thrift Store, 307 Island Highway.
For a full list of accepted items and for more information go to www.unpluggedrecycling.ca.
reporter@goldstreamgazette.com
