Recycling isn't all it's cracked up to be.

High River Council decided Monday not to explore the feasibility of a regional recycling facility any further.

Mayor Craig Snodgrass says they're looking into a lot of different avenues.

"A lot to be learned there, we're just going in with our eyes wide open on this one to see what's really best for everybody and what's the best for the environment if that's our main concern with recycling and it should be," Snodgrass says.

He says a lot of people aren't aware glass gets buried in Calgary until a use can be found for it and most plastic gets shipped to china.

"You know this whole recycling thing is something that everybody's got to open their eyes on, on what's really going on because it's not really all that you think it is," he says. "I've learned a lot about this in the last few months and you think you throw your milk jug into your recycling and it returns the next time you go to buy milk, that you've recycled that and it's become a milk jug again, and that's not quite the way it works."

Snodgrass says contamination of items in the blue bins often means everything in the bin ends up in the landfill.

He was glad council voted against pursuing the feasibility of a regional Material Recycling Facility.

Councillor Don Moore, council's representative on the Foothills Regional Services Commission, which runs the landfill, says the landfill would be compromised if they put what he called a "money sucking" operation in there.

Moore says the landfill still has 70 years left.

Council has directed administration to continue pursuing regional curbside collection.