Recently I toured the Saskatoon landfill and LORAAS organics facility. One thing stood out at both places: plastic bags. There was all manner of plastic film hung up on fences, caught in special nets designed to contain it, and stuck in composting piles. Checkout bags might be banned in Canada, SK Recycles may have started their collection program but judging by how much of it was floating around at these locations, it’s still something that deserves our attention.
It has always bothered me that everything comes packaged in plastic film and it can’t go into our regular multi-material recycling bin. Until recently in Saskatchewan, there was nowhere responsible to recycle it, so it went to the landfill. Every week my garbage was mostly just soft plastic food packaging.
Flexible plastic films — made from LDPE, HDPE, and polypropylene — are lightweight and incredibly useful, but they’re also a nightmare for recycling facilities. They tangle around conveyor belts and sorting equipment. Curbside programs are built for rigid plastics: bottles, jugs, tubs. Films are their nemesis. The result has been a frustrating paradox: households that care deeply about recycling have been forced to landfill a material that technically could be processed if it had a different collection system.
In December 2024, SK Recycles, in partnership with SARCAN Recycling, began separate collection of plastic film. For the first time in the province’s history, flexible plastics are now accepted at all 73 SARCAN depots. The program collected over 7,000 pounds of plastic in its first few weeks alone.
- Grocery, retail, and produce bags
- Bread and bun bags
- Overwrap from toilet paper and paper towel
- Chip, snack, and crinkly food bags
- Zip-lock and stand-up pouches
- Bubble wrap and air pillows
- Foam takeout containers and meat trays
- Frozen food bags and cereal bag liners
The expansion is backed by an Extended Producer Responsibility program — manufacturers and brand owners are now financially responsible for managing their packaging at end of life. That’s what makes the economics of collection viable, but to be clear — unlike with bottles, there is no deposit you pay or get back.
In our house I keep a dedicated collection bag in our sunroom — fittingly, an empty plastic dog food bag. Anything flexible and clean goes in: pasta bags, cucumber wrap, chip bags, fruit nets. When it’s full, it comes along on the next SARCAN bottle run. The impact on our garbage has been immediate. Our weekly bag is measurably smaller. Plastic film was accounting for a surprising portion of our household waste by volume. One tip: give bags a quick shake-out or rinse and dry before storing. SARCAN needs clean, dry material, and a chip bag with crumb residue doesn’t process as well.
The collected material is sent to Merlin Plastics, a Canadian recycler headquartered in Delta, BC, with facilities in BC, Alberta & Ontario. Merlin converts the film into high-quality recycled LDPE and HDPE pellets — post-consumer materials sold to manufacturers as a direct substitute for virgin plastic.
What gets made from it? Plastic lumber, agricultural film, irrigation piping, industrial packaging, drainage pipe, and new bags and wraps. Merlin’s mission is explicitly circular: replace plastic’s “cradle-to-grave” lifecycle with continuous reuse. Getting flexible plastics to this end-market is a genuine technical achievement that took years of planning, and it’s now happening at scale right here in Saskatchewan.
The province has set targets to reduce waste per person by 30% by 2030 and 50% by 2040. Flexible plastics, previously going entirely to landfill, are a major category. This program is a meaningful step.
The barrier to participation is low. You need a collection bag in your house and a habit of dropping clean, dry plastic film into it then take it to SARCAN at your convenience. It takes thirty seconds to drop off since you don’t even have to wait in line. Now that this system exists and the end market is real, we don’t need to have bags flying away at the landfill or winding up in the compost anymore. Start the collection bag in your own home and make the trip.
