Despite the urban push for sustainability, some downtown Winnipeg apartment blocks still lack recycling bins, leading green-minded residents to search for alternatives in other neighbours’ yards.

University of Winnipeg student Sagan Morrow lives in West Broadway. She recycles as much as she can, but feels obstructed by the fact her building does not provide recycling bins.

She has to carry her recycling to a bin located in front of a neighbouring building.

One time while doing this, Morrow was harassed by a passerby.

“A woman stopped her car and yelled that she’d ‘rather [I] did not use it,’” she said.

Morrow said the woman saw her walking down the street with her arms full, and parked across the street to yell at her.

“She was concerned about her bins,” she said. “She was being territorial.”

Morrow understands that bins can get full, but thought that because she was being environmental, people would not mind.

She hopes her building will provide bins for its residents so this does not happen again.

Morrow lives in a building run by Houston Properties, which is managed by Granite Gates.

Granite Gates declined to comment on the issue.

While it may be a problem for some residents, certain rental agencies rely on neighbourly recycling facilities sharing. Chris Gacek, the caretaker at the Gannon Apartments building on Roslyn Road, said his building does not provide recycling bins because the buildings around him do.

“I was told that we would be responsible for any damage to the bins, and we have a lot of vagrants in the area,” he said.

The Roslyn Road building opens onto the bank of the Assiniboine River, which does not have any fencing due to erosion, Gacek said. This means the parking lot is open to anyone coming up from the bank.

“It was just too much of a hassle,” he said. “There are three bins in the building beside us and four across the street.”

The City of Winnipeg doesn’t require apartment or condominium buildings to provide recycling facilities, said Randy Park, supervisor of waste diversion for the City of Winnipeg.

“Recycling is purely voluntary,” he said.

Manitoba’s Residential Tenancies Act does not mandate recycling in the city’s rental properties.

Park said that despite this, Winnipeg is doing a good job of recycling, with high participation and less than five per cent of garbage entering the recycling stream.

This ranks Winnipeg below the national average of garbage infiltration, he said.

Yet earlier this year, the Canadian Press reported Manitoba has the worst recycling record in Canada, diverting only 13 per cent of its waste.

Park could only comment on Winnipeg.

He said he wouldn’t like to see recycling become mandatory, because people respond better when it is voluntary.

“We should educate more that recycling is the way to go,” he said. “It’s the right thing to do, and it works.”

Central recycling bins outside apartment buildings and condos can fill up fast, said Park, which is what the irate driver yelling at Morrow was really concerned about.

“We don’t get complaints about people using bins that aren’t for their building,” Park said. “But we can all appreciate that if they are full that people will get frustrated.”

Park said a good way to keep the bins from filling too fast is to compress what you can, such as cardboard.

Published in Volume 63, Number 27 of The Uniter (May 20, 2009)