Some time ago BC changed part of their recycling program. There is now a deposit on things like milk and plant-based beverage cartoons, as well as other beverage bottles, that previously weren’t recycled. They moved this colorful building into McBride to receive those containers. I guess because people now receive their money back when they return those items, the building has to be secure, so no one will steal those empty bottles and cartoons.
This security almost drove me crazy the first two times I tried to recycle our bottles and cartoons. It was all so complicated.
We drink a lot of soy milk and always used to just burn the cartons in our wood stove, and I was eager to recycle them instead. Because the cartoons are bulky, I carefully crushed them so I could get a lot of them in the clear plastic bag that was required. After I had accumulated and crushed a lot of the cartons, I read that they shouldn’t be crushed, because the recyclers had to be able to see the bar code on the cartons, so I had to go out to my workshop, empty all of the cartons from the bag, and expand them back to their original shape by blowing into the spout.
We had to get a pin number and some stickers to put on each bag of items to be recycled. When our bag was full, I applied the sticker to the bag and went to the recycle building. I followed the directions; touched the key pad and then put in my pin number. Nothing happened except the indicator light just kept flashing green and red. I touched the keypad again and put in my pin number with the same result. I continued doing this numerous times, getting the same result. The little door of the building wouldn’t open.
I tried to go to the website several times using my clumsy cold fingers to type out the address on my small cell phone. I kept making mistakes standing in the cold winter weather. The glasses weren’t strong enough to see well and like I said, my big fingers didn’t work well on my phone. Eventually I gave up and was about to drive away, when a neighbor pulled up to deposit her recycling.
The little door opened for her, so I was able just to throw my bag into the recycling hut using the door she opened.
Time passed. The recycling company changed their procedure. Now you have to send them a text message and they send you back a pass code. When I was ready to recycle my second bag of cartons and bottles, my attempts to get the door open, once again failed when I texted in my pin number. Again my frustration began to rise, (it didn’t help that I had also tried to take some trash to the dump, but it was closed).
Once back home with my bag of recycling and the trash for the dump, I called the recycling outfit in my irate mood. I learned that instead of the old pin number I had initially been given, I now had to text a four letter code to the recycling outfit and then they would text back to me a one-time code number that would open the door of the recycling hut for 3 minutes.
It all seemed a bit over secure to me, I wasn’t putting gold into the hut, just some empty milk cartoons. I went back to the recycling hut, texted my four letter code, and got a text back with a one-time pin. This time I was successful in getting the door open and depositing my cartons and bottles.
I now have accumulated a whole $9-plus change into my account. I am just happy that I was able to get the bag into the recycling hut.
I guess if you don’t have a cell phone, you are just out of luck.
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