Saskatchewan residents have been cashing in on their pile of empties that grew throughout the spring amid the pandemic.

SARCAN opened up to the public on June 15 and saw a flock of customers at their doors. So far in the month of July, the workers at Humboldt SARCAN have counted over 620,000 recyclables.

"July is going to go down as our busiest month in our over 30-year history for sure. We've never collected more containers in such a short period of time across Saskatchewan," said Sean Homenick with SARCAN.

Right now SARCAN is processing 14 million containers a week across the province. That means up to 50 million empties processed for the month of July. Homenick stated these numbers could persist over the next two months.

"We thought people would be hesitant to return to SARCAN. We've seen it with other businesses and thought we'd be in the same position, but people have really been coming out in droves to get their recycling done."

The Drop & Go system has proved useful amid the pandemic. It's the quickest and safest way to visit as customers can get in and out in three minutes with minimal contact. In Humboldt, about 20 percent of recyclables are passing through the Drop & Go system.

"We've noticed and heard from customers that it's really been their method of choice for visiting SARCAN as we've reopened."

As customers continue to pour into Humboldt SARCAN, the staff have been doing an outstanding job by directing customers and processing recycling from the community for bottle drives.

"We really can't say enough about how the team in Humboldt has been. The staff has been just amazing at helping customers with however they would like to recycle," stated Homenick.