New trash system of 2.6 million bins to simplify Mackenzie's three bin policy

"After all, not everybody can properly sort their waste—it's just too difficult sometimes."

By: Ben Anapeel

A preview of Mackenzie's new and innovative trash sorting system.

Starting in March of 2020, the science hallway of Mackenzie will be reconstructed in order to implement a revolutionary waste-sorting strategy. Instead of designated black bins, blue bins, and green bins, all waste in the school will be sorted alphabetically and by colour. According to the official Mackenzie trash council, this new system will make it easier for students to properly sort their waste.

“Sorting trash only by garbage, recycling, and compost has proven to be a very demanding mental challenge for students,” said one of Mackenzie’s expert trash analysts. “Especially since high school can be quite stressful for students, we don’t want to overwhelm them. I believe that this new system will not only help students sort their waste, but also help with their mental health. After all, not everybody can properly sort their waste—it’s just too difficult sometimes.”

There will be 26 sections of bins, one for each letter of the alphabet, and each section will contain 100,000 bins to correspond to a set of 100,000 different colours. Individual bins will be labelled with a colour, represented by a hexadecimal code. As of now, the school has finalized orders to create a total of 2,600,000 bins for the new system. The funding for this investment was obtained through lasagna sales from the cafeteria.

A survey conducted last month in anticipation of this new system showed that approximately 92% of students preferred to have hex code labels for waste sorting instead of the current posters listing what trash goes where.

The science hallway of the building will be closed off for a week to prepare for the implementation of the new system. All the new waste bins will be located in this hallway, which, according to the Mackenzie trash council, “is necessary for an efficient, centralized trash system”. Once the new system is complete, the amount of improperly sorted trash at Mackenzie is expected to decrease by at least 48% and the colour variety in Mackenzie’s visual arts projects to increase by 39%.