Recycling app launched in 3 Cape Breton municipalities

A new app meant to simplify solid waste collection has just been launched by three municipalities in Cape Breton.

The app is called Recycle Cape Breton and is available for residents in Inverness County, Victoria County and Port Hawkesbury. It lets people enter their address and find the specific day and time their garbage or recycling will be collected, as well as information about how to sort their trash properly.

The idea for a more streamlined garbage collection service started in the Municipality of Inverness County.

"It's been a priority of council as well as staff to step up our efforts in terms of recycling in the municipality, so staff reached out to other municipal units to team up on this app," said Keith MacDonald, the chief administrative officer for Inverness County.

"We realized that there was quite a bit of confusion at times, and we were handling a lot of questions."

The Recycle Cape Breton app was designed in partnership with an app developer who has made similar products across North America, including for the Cape Breton Regional Municipality.

It works by linking to the resident's address and notifies them the night before of curbside collection, or special collection schedules like household hazardous waste drop-off events, bulky pickup schedules and any changes to the weekly collection due to weather, mechanical issues or holiday cancellations.

There are also more detailed instructions for people who aren't sure whether an item should go in the garbage, recycling, be composted, or sorted in some other way.

Kelly Brett, the supervisor of public works for Victoria County, noted the municipality has a reuse centre where people can bring items that might be useful to others.

"So if there's a material that doesn't necessarily fall into those other three categories, if it still has useful life, it will tell you you can take it to the reuse centre," Brett said.

She said the municipalities saw the success of theCBRM app and decidedit was time to make a change from the old way of doing things.

'It makes it very convenient'

Brett added that even though the app is new, people in the community will take advantage of the new service.

"In this age of technology, people are using their phones more and more often to get information and use it as a spot for everything to be in one place. So if we can provide information directly to someone's cellphone, it makes it very convenient."

The goal of the app is not just convenience, but to make all of the communities involved greener in the future.

"Our goal is to lessen our solid waste material that goes to landfill. So the more information and the easier we make recycling to people, we feel that they will embrace that and that we can lessen our [environmental] impact," said MacDonald.

Recycle Cape Breton is available on the Apple App Store and Google Play Store for most smartphones and tablets. There's a website available for those who don't have cellphones. Or they can call their municipalities to sign up for landline phone reminders.