St. John’s city council is holding the line on its recycling services, at least for now.

At yesterday’s regular council meeting the city looked at various strategies for securing blue recycling bags on collection days, however, each option was presented with numerous pros and cons.

Ultimately, the city decided to give its current mandatory recycling program another year for monitoring.

This is the first year of the clear bag program and during the first few months of the year, many residents were adjusting to the logistics of the new system. That was coupled with challenges and delays brought on by the omicron variant of COVID.

After a year of monitoring, the issue will be revisited.

In the meantime, the city has decided to increase communication with residents about recycling, with enhanced messaging on windy days to try to curb some of the problems being encountered.

Deputy Mayor Sheilagh O’Leary and Councillor Ophelia Ravencroft voted against taking such a route.

O’Leary agrees that there is still a lot to unpack with the issue, but wants to see the city take a systematic approach to it and have something that isn’t within the hands of the private market, but rather something that the city has a consistent way of approaching.