The City of Airdrie was out to keep household hazardous waste out of the landfill yesterday (June 9) during their Household Hazardous Waste Round-Up and Barbeque at the city's recycling depot.  

Considering it was a rather rainy day, a good crowd of Airdrie residents brought their aerosol cans, household cleaners, paints, batteries and old electronics to the depot to be properly recycled, and stayed to enjoy a hot dog.  As well, everyone who brought household hazardous materials yesterday was entered to win a smoker.   

Leanne Moreira is the Education Coordinator for Waste and Recycling and says it was a chance for residents to learn what kinds of materials they can drop off at the depot.  

"All these materials are accepted year round but we know, with Airdrie's population growing and with people coming and going that some people may not know that we're here year round and exactly what they can drop off.  Anything with the hazardous symbol on it."

Moreira says some of the materials can be very dangerous.  "They can leak into the ground, that's one danger.  As well, when they get collected, like an aerosol can, they can actually get punctured in our trucks and cause a fire, either in the truck or at the recycling facility, which is why we want to prevent that from happening.

To over-simplify the issue, as Education Coordinator, Moreira focuses on educating Airdronians about what can and can't go into waste and recycling.  She says, overall, residents are doing great, both in keeping hazardous materials where they should be and in recycling in general. 

"We see lots of people coming to the depot year round.  We just want more people to know we're here and we will accept these materials.  Since we started our Cart Wizard program we've seen people doing an amazing job putting exactly what needs to go in the right places and we definitely have seen improvement.  We've been leaving notes with carts saying 'please bundle your stretchy plastic bags and we'll go back the next week and we see people doing that.  The more education we can get out there the better our residents can do."

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