In an effort to get residents to begin diverting more waste into recycling or green cans, the City of White Rock will kick off a new waste collection schedule starting Monday.

The move will see recycling and green can collections remain a weekly occurrence, while garbage collection will now take place every two weeks for single-family dwellings. The new program is aimed at getting residents to focus more on organic and recyclable waste, rather than simply dumping everything in the garbage bins.

"It's part of Metro Vancouver's 70 per cent diversion goal of 2015," said Greg St. Louise, director of engineering and municipal operations for the City of White Rock. "So we're saving the environment and saving money as well."

According to St. Louise, the new system will ensure people pay more attention to what they're putting in the garbage, which will eventually lead to cost-saving for the city and taxpayers.

"The tipping costs for garbage are significantly more than organics," he said.

But while the change will only be affecting single-family dwellings for now, St. Louise said the city planned to institute the change to multi-family dwellings sometime in the future.

"At this time there's a lot of contamination with multi-family and it's hard to police that," he said.

St. Louise said the city has received a few calls from people inquiring about the change in schedules, but he remains confident most people are aware by now.

"We've done a lot of notices and advertising, we have flyers up and big posters, we've mailed out information," he said. "Really, the only difference is garbage is going every other week."

All organics, including yard trimmings, kitchen scraps and food-soiled napkins and paper can be put in the green can, while recyclables such as glass bottles/jars, tin cans and plastic bottles can be put in the blue recycling bin. Newspapers are to be put in the blue bag while other paper products are to be put in yellow bags.

cpoon@thenownewspaper.com