![\"The](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/1779214810_804_default.jpg\")
The Metro Vancouver Regional District includes compost or green-bin waste in its recycling rate. (Ethan Cairns\/CBC)<\/p>\nIf you live in an apartment in Metro Vancouver, your recycling routine might look a bit like a juggling act.<\/p>\n
From balancing an overflowing compost bin in your left hand, to grasping a bag of garbage in your right \u2014 while lugging another bag of plastic containers on your hip \u2014 you’ll walk through hallways, an elevator, maybe the parkade, to reach a smelly recycling room.<\/p>\n
Hands full, you toss your various bags into the receptacles, without trying to touch anything too gross. It’s a success \u2014 at least you didn’t spill your compost in the elevator.<\/p>\n
That’s one possibility.\u00a0<\/p>\n
An alternative is that you just don’t recycle at all.<\/p>\n
Apartment dwellers are less likely to recycle and compost as their neighbours in single-family homes, according to data from the Metro Vancouver Regional District.<\/p>\n
Data from the regional district shows that single-family dwellers have a recycling rate of about 60 to 65 per cent, whereas the rate for multi-family dwellers is 30 to 35 per cent.<\/p>\n
“Multi-family” buildings include high-rise and low-rise condo and rental apartment buildings.<\/p>\n
The recycling rate includes both blue-bin recycling, like paper and plastic, as well as green-bin waste like food scraps and yard trimmings.<\/p>\n
The Metro Vancouver Regional District includes compost or green-bin waste in its recycling rate. (Ethan Cairns\/CBC)<\/p>\n
Part of the reason is a higher barrier to recycling for residents of apartments and multi-family homes, according to Zero Waste B.C. volunteer Belinda Li. She laid out the labyrinthine path some condo-dwellers take.<\/p>\n
“That’s quite different than, say, a single-family home where you might just have your bins outside, and you can just take your stuff there pretty regularly.”<\/p>\n
There’s other factors too, Li said. <\/p>\n
She noted some municipalities don’t offer collection services for apartments like they do for single-family homes, which means municipalities don’t have as much control over how multi-family dwellers recycle, such as which types of waste are collected.<\/p>\n
Rodrigo Borquez Zalle, who lives in a Vancouver apartment, said he and his roommates recycle and compost as much as they can.<\/p>\n
But he said he wasn’t surprised other apartment dwellers find it a hassle, particularly with “barely” enough space to store all the garbage.<\/p>\n
“But we make it work,” he said.<\/p>\n
WATCH | Why do recycling rates differ between buildings and homes?:![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/1779214810_59_default.jpg\")
<\/p>\n
Metro Vancouver apartments don’t recycle as much as single-family residences<\/p>\n
It\u2019s a tale of two recyclers. It turns out if you live in an apartment, chances are you might not be diverting as much waste as your neighbours who live in single-family homes. The CBC’s Lauren Vanderdeen explains why, and how the region is hoping to change that.<\/p>\n
For Borquez Zalle, the clearer the information, the better.<\/p>\n
“I would like the people in charge of that to make it easier for us to learn what goes in where. I’ve tried to look for guides, but I want something simpler.”<\/p>\n
New long-term solid waste plan<\/p>\n
Metro Vancouver is in the middle of updating its solid waste management plan. One of its priorities is increasing how much multi-family home waste is diverted from the landfill.<\/p>\n
Karen Storry, senior engineer for Metro Vancouver, recommended using the green bin as a great way to start.<\/p>\n
“When you put your organics in the green bin instead of the garbage, then it doesn’t go to a landfill where it creates methane,” Storry said. “So it’s really important to divert your organics, so that you can reduce climate emissions.”<\/p>\n
Li said it’s also on companies to design products with less packaging waste.<\/p>\n
“The best scenario is if we don’t even generate these waste materials to begin with.”<\/p>\n
![\"Two](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/1779214811_718_default.jpg\")
According to data from Metro Vancouver, apartment residents throw away about 1.3 times more waste than those in single-family homes. (Martin Diotte\/CBC)<\/p>\n
Storry noted some cities have zero-waste ambassadors in condo buildings that can help translate and share information from local governments to residents directly.<\/p>\n
Make recycling easy, comfortable: advocate<\/p>\n
One of those ambassadors, Jennifer Danczak, has set up a variety of programs to get her Vancouver neighbours on board with reducing waste.<\/p>\n
“Convenience is the main thing people are looking for when they’re recycling or upcycling,” Danczak said.<\/p>\n
She recommended stratas set up recycling programs and communicate clearly to residents.<\/p>\n
She said her condo has cameras in the recycling room, and it fines residents who don’t comply with recycling bylaws.<\/p>\n
That’s saved them thousands of dollars that would have been spent on paying junk haulers to take away items illegally disposed by residents, according to Danczak.<\/p>\n
She said residents are encouraged to participate in prepaid programs, in which they can spend about $10 to $15 to send off unwanted items that can’t be easily thrown out, thus avoiding a $50 to $100 fine for dumping.<\/p>\n
Danczak also spruced up the building’s recycling room to make it more pleasant.<\/p>\n
She bought a $50 stainless steel table off of Facebook Marketplace to make it easier for people to set their garbage down and created fun graphics to indicate which waste goes where.<\/p>\n
“Some things work, you trial them out, and some things don’t work but you just keep trying,” she said.<\/p>\n
The Metro Vancouver draft solid waste management plan will go through a public comment period in the coming weeks, according to the regional district.<\/p>\n
The draft plan along with whatever feedback is received will eventually go to the environment minister for final approval.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"If you live in an apartment in Metro Vancouver, your recycling routine might look a bit like a…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":680159,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[22],"tags":[49,48,295,66],"class_list":["post-680158","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-environment","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-environment","tag-science"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/680158","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=680158"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/680158\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/680159"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=680158"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=680158"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=680158"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}