Diverters branch out to View Royal

The Diverters Foundation made its first service call in View Royal this month, to a big blue bin packed with refundable recycling. Once sorted and returned to The Bottle Depot, that pile of bottles and cans turned into $105.90 that will go towards Diverters wages. It also diverted (get it? ) 1,059 bottles from landfills.

The Foundation is a collective that works with vulnerable people in Greater Victoria to create economic independence through sorting refundable recycling. For folks who regularly collect recycling, it’s a hard and inconsistent form of income. The collective aims to streamline the work, help reduce the stigma, and put a focus on the environmental service the waste pickers provide.

It started with a program where individual households can call a Diverter to pick up their recyclables once they have at least a full trash bag full. But last fall the collective set up three community bins—large metal bins that hold a full load of recycling—around Greater Victoria. And this spring they set up the first Westshore community bin at 94 Talcott Rd. in View Royal where the Our Place New Roads facility is, not far from Victoria General Hospital.

When it filled up, they got a call and a couple of Diverters headed out to do the pick up.

If you have any deposit recyclables, consider taking them to the big blue bin on 94 Talcott Rd. The Diverters are also campaigning to have a deposit on coffee cups. It would help divert the millions of cups a year that could be recycled, and end up in landfills instead.