Town Councillor Marni Fedeyko has bitten the bullet and volunteered her family to become the first to participate in Mission Impossible to better understand waste management in her household.

The town’s Mission Impossible has a two-fold purpose. Firstly, the town wants to better understand the problems some residents believe they’ll face if the town reduces trash (black bin) collection to every other week. Secondly, it’s a chance to provide further education on ways to sort better sort waste into three categories: trash, recyclables and organics.

Fedeyko provided about three days of uncensored garbage placed by her family of five in their trash bin.

After the trash was sorted and weighed, only 13 per cent of the contents belonged in the trash bin. Sixty-nine per cent was organic and all but one other piece belonged in the blue bin. There was one piece of styrofoam that can be taken to the eco-centre to be recycled.

Cochrane is the only community in Alberta capable of recycling styrofoam in all its forms, explains Bertolo.

“It doesn’t matter what colour, if it’s packaging or meat trays, or any other kind of styrofoam, it can all be recycled here in Cochrane,” he says.

The styrofoam, though, needs to be clean when dropped off.

Fedeyko admitted it was a bit embarrassing to have someone go through her family’s garbage but believed it was necessary, especially as a member of town council. She believes if you expect people to change their habits, it should come from the top down.

“I believe you have to be the messenger,” says Fedeyko. “If you want to see something changed we should all do it. I thought I’d put myself out there and show people that you can get better and you can learn stuff along the way.”

Fedeyko made particular note of the amount of paper towel thrown in her family’s trash as well as the plastic bags and is something she planned to focus on. The paper towel can be placed in the green organic bin and the plastic bags in the blue recyclables container.

What she sees as particularly challenging is being the mother of three young children and the challenge of monitoring where they throw what. She suspects this is commonly faced by families.

Yet even as the analysis was being completed you could see her wheels turning on how to make changes to make waste management top of mind and easier for her children.

In particular, she is keen on changing is their drawer system that currently has one recycling bin and one trash container. She wants to switch it to one for recycling and the other for organics.

How well she and her family manage their trash will be further revealed when she returns to the centre for have a full week’s worth of trash sorted.

Bertolo says he understands it’s a learning process but it does get easy. People tend to purchase the same products regularly so sorting becomes routine.

He says there are items that people simply aren’t sure where to put. That includes take out containers. Most items can be placed directly in the green bin, include boxes, bags, waxed paper cups and food waste. Other items, like plastic cups, would still be required to be washed and placed in the blue bin.

App Being Developed

What might make it easier for some if the new phone app being developed by the town especially for waste recycling. It’s expected to be launched in the spring and will help the user determine where waste goes. In addition, it will provide advance reminders of the users next collection days by a method of choice (on app or via text or email).