Let Your Recycling Run Wild and Free!

Happy Monday! Let’s prep for this week’s recycling pickup with a hot Curbside Collection Tip on blue cart etiquette.

Let your recycling run wild and free! All items should be placed loosely in your blue cart, not in bags in your cart.

Soft plastics are a disaster when it comes to sorting out recycling at the depot—the sorting machine throws a tantrum when bags get stuck on sorting equipment, and the bags can snag items together, making it difficult for the machines to identify what’s what. This can contaminate the entire batch, meaning nothing gets recycled after all. Please keep bags and other soft plastics out of your recycling cart!

If your cart is full to the brim and you have extra recycling this week, then (and only then!) may you bag it. Please use transparent clear or blue bags for extra recycling and place them next to your cart. Workers will dump your cart and then dump the contents of the bag(s) into your cart and dump that, too. Empty bags are taken away for separate recycling.

And if you have soft plastic recycling (including bags and plastic overwrap), remember to take this to Do Your Part, along with Styrofoam and glass (also not permitted in your blue cart).