Bristal Hauling is now in charge of collecting recycling in Steinbach, and with a new company comes new bins. 

They have been delivering these new recycling bins to residents of Steinbach, placing the bins on the end of each driveway. 

This new system for Steinbach is very standard across the industry. These bins can be seen in Hanover and surrounding communities. 

Emanuel Toews from Bristal Hauling explains how the truck empties the bins. The workers operate a joystick rather than manually grabbing boxes and bags. 

"We grab the carts with two fingers that wrap around each cart. With the mechanical arm, it tips the cart upside down and into our truck, making the work very minimal for our operators.”  

These bins are a lot larger than the recycling bins people are used to putting out every week. Some households will likely only need to put their bin out every other week.

On the other hand, if your household generates too much or if you missed one of the collections, you can always drop off extra recycling at the Steinbach Landfill. 

When placing the carts on your driveway for collection, make sure the wheels get pointed toward the house. 

Also make sure to place it at least three feet away from parked cars or other objects, so that the fingers that wrap around the cart don’t damage whatever is nearby. 

Remember to continue to only put recyclable materials in the recycle bins. 

Toews says with this system, they actually know which residents are putting garbage in the recycling bins.  

"We have cameras on the trucks that can help us see what material is going in, so operators are trained to look at that,” he says. “So if we find repeat offenders then we try and educate directly with cards that hang on your cart.” 

The cards give directions on what the issue was and why they didn’t collect. 

The new system is also likely to decrease litter. 

“We found in some communities, the new cart system stopped all the blowing material around the neighborhood. So we're hoping for spring clean-up time that there's less for the clean-up crew to do.” 

Bristal Hauling has seen this program roll out smoothly in other communities, and hopes for the same to happen here in Steinbach.

“We've done this a number of times already, so we're excited to work with all the residents,” he says. “Just remember that blue lid means recycling.” 

 

with files from Corny Rempel