COURTENAY, BC – Today is Earth Day.
To mark the occasion, the Recycling Council of B.C. is reminding British Columbians about an app that promotes proper recycling.
The Recyclepedia App was introduced in 2011 and is available for smart devices.
Recycling Council spokesperson Harvinder Aujala said the app allows residents to find over 1,000 drop-off locations and recycling options for over 70 materials and products in British Columbia.
“Tell it was you’ve got, so you could be like ‘oh, I have some paint or I’m looking for somewhere to drop off my small appliances’, and what it does is using the GPS from your home, it will actually show you the ten closest drop-off locations for the materials you’re looking to recycle,” she said.
Last year, there were over 35,000 searches on the app. Aujala said motor oil was the most common search over the course of 2017.
“People also searched things like paint, light bulbs, household batteries. So it has a lot of materials (in the search engine library).”
The focus for this year’s Earth Day is on plastics.
According to recent studies, plastics are now found in 93 per cent of our drinking water. One estimate has plastics in the ocean exceeding all fish in weight by 2050.
For more on the Earth Day initiative, visit earthday.ca, and to download the Recyclepedia App, visit rcbc.ca/recyclepedia-app.
-With files from Sharon Vanhouwe
