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Frozen Tropics tipped us off to this piece of news from the District Department of Public Works: beginning yesterday, city recycling crews are now picking up a number of new kinds of items that were previously not accepted for recycling. Most intriguing is that the city will now collect plastic bags for recycling, including the bags you typically get from grocery stores, and even those flimsier produce and dry cleaning bags. Here's the list of new items the city will now pick up:
• Aerosol cans
• Milk and juice cartons
• Plastic bags, e.g., grocery bags, newspaper bags, shopping bags (Please “bag the bags” by placing all the bags into one bag.)
• Rigid plastics: plastic milk/soda crates, plastic buckets with metal handles, plastic laundry baskets, plastic lawn furniture, plastic totes, plastic drums, plastic coolers, plastic flower pots, plastic drinking cups/glasses, plastic 5-gallon water bottles, plastic pallets, plastic toys, and empty plastic garbage/recycling bins.
• Wide-mouth containers: peanut butter, margarine/butter tubs, yogurt, cottage cheese, sour cream, mayonnaise, whipped topping, and prescription and other medicine bottles.
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Too late to the party. Most of that stuff just goes in to my Mr. Fusion.
God, the DC government is bad at explanations! The width or function of the container has NEVER had anything to do with whether you could recycle it or not -- it's all about the TYPE of material that's used. And yet, nowhere on the DC government website can I find an answer to what types of plastic are allowed and what types are not.
I believe the DC government assumes that the "people " are bad with explanations, so they have tried to dumb it down as much as possible. By "wide mouth," they must mean they are now accepting #1, #2, #3, #4, & #7 plastic. And just saying "wide mouth containers" is easier- of course that will not stop people from throwing in bottle caps and dog bowls, but what the hell.
I am impressed with the service though, it has to be one of the country's best now? Most other cities I visit accept half the materials we do.
Of course I thought they already accepted most of that stuff so I have been throwing in out in the alley for years- that explains the giant mound behind my house- oops.
Assuming, of course, that they actually recycle it and DC garbagemen don't just throw it in the trash. Sigh.
Well, this is great news.
Now how about improving the accessibility of public recycling containers around the city?
On Saturday, I drank a Gatorade while waiting for the 42 bus from Columbia & 18th. I got on and proceeded to Farragut West. I got on at Farragut West and went to Virginia Square - GMU on the Orange.
At no point during my journey did I see a public recycling bin, and instead waited until I got to my girlfriend's place to put the plastic bottle in with her recycling.
How, on any fucking level, is that an acceptable approach to recycling in a modern, million plus metropolis?
Sadly, I've witnessed workers throwing the recycling in with the garbage on several occassions.
I'm just impressed that my trash even gets picked up let alone the recycling gets picked up by the recycling crew and not thrown in with the regular trash.
Does this mean that apartment buildings now have to offer all types of recycling containers to residents? Currently my building only allows plastic bottles and newspaper. No aluminum or glass -- which is the most of my recycling (I should probably investigate my drinking habits...)
ThatGirl: your building might hire in a private trash service and so what you can recycle is dependent on what that private service recycles. If so, then you could collect recyclables and drop it off at a public site... er... except that I don't know where that would be. Anyone?
Because it looks like there are items on that list that will not fit in the blue bins or carts. so how do we make sure they trash guys don't take them? Or where do we go to drop off recyclables (not just Gatorades, but, ya know, a central recycling collection site)?
I too have seen the garbage man take the reycling many times- I asked mine about it once and they nervously explained to me that it is still being recycled, they are just going to seperate it from the tons of garbage when they get back to the dump... righ-h-h-t. Of course it's not just a DC thing, I have seen the same thing in every office building I have worked in, which hire out their own private service.
As for the public containers, amen. What the hell is up with the complete lack of public receptacles? If you have ever seen the trash cans on the mall after a weekend, spilling over onto the ground with 99% plastic water bottles, it is a sickening sight of waste. The Fed should fix it in national parks fast. I am sure it is a high priority and all. As for the city streets, we can demand that- and should.
Hmm, I hope Arlington moves in this direction as well. It's annoying to have to drop everything off at the recycling centers instead of putting it out curb-side.
Also - would it kill them to update the basic website to reflect this BEFORE making the announcement?!
DC link
You have to hand it to DC, at least they try to make it convenient to recycle. Not having to sort anything is golden. Refusal to recycle despite that is completely selfish.
If we have more recycling than that blue bin allows -- something that happens frequently when Joe Six-Pack is over drinking -- I just put a little sign on the overflow bag(s). Then the recycling people take it, the trash guys are happy to leave it alone and everyone wins.
wait, you couldn't recycle plastic peanut butter jars before? whoops.
"it is still being recycled, they are just going to seperate it from the tons of garbage when they get back to the dump... righ-h-h-t."
This is called post-collection sorting.. it happens all the time. That doesn't mean it was actually going on in your specific incident, but it appears you're scoffing at the idea that it could happen to begin with.
@miss bee Also marked me as surprised that you couldn't recycle plastic shopping bags. I use those bags to collect all of the empties around my house. Those super-sized target bags really came in handy last week, let me tell ya.
Even if your apartment building has bins labeled for newspaper or plastic, I don't think it matters much since I would imagine everything is sorted at the recycling facility. I put all paper products in the newspaper bin, and everything else in the plastics bin.
First Metro gets federal funding and now this? If Obama is elected, DC gets a vote, and a bakery and produce mart opens up in Adams Morgan, I just may die of being too content.
This is in response to the people asking about public recycling bins. There have started to be recycling bins on the Mall around the Smithsion museums. Downtown Business Improvement district has started a pilot program in the Business district. They are blue cans right next to the regular trash cans.
I have also heard that a group on Capitol Hill is involved in the same pilot program.
While this is not a lot, at least it is a start.
The problem is not what you can throw out in your recycling bin, it's the fact that every Tuesday evening when I get home, my recycling bin (our street gets the small bin, and not the stand-up kind on wheels) is nowhere to be found.
Maybe i just live on a street where people are too lazy to request a new bin from the city, but mine has now been stolen 4 or 5 times. Twice I have gone into a neighbor's front yard and taken back my bin (we wrote our address on it!), once I used a rubbermaid container in the absence of a bin, and that was stolen, and just yesterday, I had to take an abandoned bin off the street that was not the one I put out. In total, I have requested 3 bins from the city in less than 6 months.
What is going on here people?
@kiril: You can stop by my street, because the blue stand-up rolling bins we have seem to be multiplying. I keep ending up with some in front of my house, even though I put out my trash and recycling in the alley for pickup. And even there I think we have about 5 more floating around than actual residences.