Why Blue Bags for Recycling?

Since January 2022 when the City of St. John’s began requiring clear bags for garbage, we’ve received many inquiries wondering if see-through blue bags are still required for curbside recycling.

Yes, curbside recycling must be in see-through blue bags; one for paper recyclables and a separate one for container recyclables. Learn the basics of curbside recyclingsort it, bag it, curb it – at CurbitStJohns.ca.

Clear bags are for garbage only, not for recycling.

On recycling days, up to three different City trucks come by your property:

1. the garbage truck to collect clear garbage bags and privacy bags placed at the curb

2. the recycling truck to collect see-through blue bags, bundles of cardboard or bins with a recycling sticker

3. seasonally, the yard waste truck to collect paper yard waste bags

Every collection day each garbage and recycling truck collects from 800 or more properties depending on the route; yard waste trucks collect from three times as many.

On recycling days, with three separate trucks visiting each property, having a different colour or type of bag allows drivers to quickly identify the waste material they are collecting.

We Want to Recycle Recyclables

We want to ensure recycling put at the curb is processed and made into new items. Recyclables put in colourless clear bags may not be recognized by the recycling collector who is looking for see-through blue bags. If recyclables are put in colourless clear bags, it may be missed as recycling and not collected.

It is important that the recycling bags used are both seethrough and blue in colour/tint. This helps to ensure that the recyclables residents take the time to rinse/prepare and bag together are actually recycled. Recycling collectors also need to see through the blue bag to determine if it contains papers or containers. There are two separate compartments in our trucks, one for papers and the other for containers, and they cannot be mixed together.

Blue Bags are a Recyclable Product

In the Materials Recovery (recycling) Facility, once recyclables are removed from the blue bags the blue bags themselves are baled together and shipped to recycling markets, where they are made into new blue bags. We have a market to send the see-through blue bags and it is important that this material is consistently blue, not of other bag colours or tints.