Charlotte's new recycling program rolls out next week
June 28, 2010
Charlotte's new recycling program rolls out next week
Biweekly collection in larger carts, with more recyclable items, could save the city $15 million over five years.
By Lisa Du
lisafangdu@charlotteobserver.com
Posted: Monday, Jun. 28, 2010
Beginning next week, Charlotte's recycling program gets an overhaul, with new bins and a biweekly collection schedule.
Under the initiative, known as "Recycle It!", residents have received 96-gallon green recycling carts to replace the older 16-gallon red bins. And with a new waste collection company, the city will reduce its pickup from weekly to biweekly.
The city began distributing bins and informing residents about the initiative in March. About 207,000 carts have been given out, and only 100 bins still need to go to residents, said Charita Curtis, a spokeswoman for the City of Charlotte's Solid Waste Services.
The new pickup schedule has been split into alternating orange and green weeks, with the orange week kicking off the program next Monday. Residents have been assigned a color for the week their recycling will be picked up, with the day of collection determined by neighborhood.
Residential recycling programs in most other Mecklenburg County towns remain on a weekly recycling pickup schedule. But Cornelius will be moving to a biweekly collection schedule Thursday, and new 64-gallon blue recycling bins have been distributed to residents for the change.
Countywide, residents will be able to recycle more items because of changes made at Mecklenburg County Solid Waste Management.
The waste management's facilities have been refitted with new equipment to process more recyclable items, including aerosol cans, juice boxes, milk and juice cartons and all plastics except plastic No. 6.
While Recycle It! applies only to Charlotte households, all Mecklenburg County residents will be able to recycle the new items processed by Solid Waste Management, said Brandi Williams, a spokeswoman for Charlotte's Solid Waste Services.
"A lot of residents are excited they will be able to recycle additional (items)," Curtis said.
The new waste management equipment also will be able to process all recyclables together, said Solid Waste Management Director Bruce Gledhill. Before, collectors had to separate recyclables into two different compartments - containers or fibrous paper products - to be processed on different machines.
The new equipment was installed in December and cost around $7 million, he added.
The changes will mean more efficient collection, and possibly could decrease the number of trucks needed to pick up recycling per day, Williams said.
"Theoretically, the process should go faster," she said.
The cutback in recycling collection is expected to save the city $15 million over the next five years and $43 million over the next decade, Curtis said.
The recycling bins for Charlotte also include new technology: Every bin comes with a radio frequency identification chip that tracks the serial number of the recycling bin and the residential address to which it is assigned. The city says the chips will allow the city to manage cart information more efficiently and to better focus environmental education to certain neighborhoods.
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