City Recycling (Pittsburgh: homes, live, cost of)

[Kate88]

My roommate and I arrived back in Pittsburgh last night to a "warning" sign on our doorknob that we had violated Pittsburgh City Code 619. I googled it and came up with this website:

Recycling

I also skimmed over the code itself and it said an initial violation would have a minimum cost of $50 and $500 for repeat violations! For putting junk mail in the garbage!? Has anyone else had a similar warning? Has anyone actually been written up for this? I'm all for recycling, but to make it mandatory, and attach a $500 dollar fine - seems pretty ridiculous to me.

[BrianTH]

The link explained their justification. Recycling provides a financial benefit for the City, and therefore failing to recycle ultimately imposes an avoidable financial burden on the City's other stakeholders.

[fleetiebelle]

I'd never heard of that ordinance actually being enforced.

Do you put out any blue bags at all? I love how easy the city makes it to recycle, and what I put out for recycling is generally twice as much as what I put out for trash.

[WestLibertyAve]

I recently moved into the city and I feel like I'm one of the only ones on my street that does recycle. I always notice trash bags with cans and bottles inside mixed with garbage. I wish the city would start handing out more of these notices, I was unaware that they enforced it at all.

Junk mail is a little different story though..is there any way to opt out of receiving it? It's such a waste and I often throw it straight in the trash as well. If the city truly cared about junk mail going to landfills they'd come up with an easy way to opt out of receiving it in the first place!

[fleetiebelle]

Junk mail is a little different story though..is there any way to opt out of receiving it? It's such a waste and I often throw it straight in the trash as well. If the city truly cared about junk mail going to landfills they'd come up with an easy way to opt out of receiving it in the first place!

But you can recycle it. I've got a paper bag under the table inside my front door--I dump junk mail, newspapers, flyers, catalogs, old magazines, etc in it, and every other week it goes out to the curb with the other recycling.

[SuburbanPioneer]

Your name and address on junk mail is how they know that it was you. Either be creative or start recycling. I'd suggest the latter.

[greg42]

Mandatory recycling is the norm most places these days. Heck, Pittsburgh has had mandatory recycling for the entire 20 years I've lived here. It's nothing new.

[ditchdigger]

Originally Posted by suburbanpioneer

your name and address on junk mail is how they know that it was you. Either be creative or start recycling. I'd suggest the latter.

Originally Posted by arlo guthrie's "alice's resturaunt"

...well we got there and there was a big sign and a chain across across the dump saying, "closed on thanksgiving." and we had never heard of a dump closed on thanksgiving before, and with tears in our eyes we drove off into the sunset looking for another place to put the garbage.

We didn't find one. Until we came to a side road, and off the side of the side road there was another fifteen foot cliff and at the bottom of the cliff there was another pile of garbage. And we decided that one big pile is better than two little piles, and rather than bring that one up we decided to throw our's down.

That's what we did, and drove back to the church, had a thanksgiving dinner that couldn't be beat, went to sleep and didn't get up until the next morning, when we got a phone call from officer obie. He said, "kid, we found your name on an envelope at the bottom of a half a ton of garbage, and just wanted to know if you had any information about it." and i said, "yes, sir, officer obie, i cannot tell a lie, i put that envelope under that garbage."

[Aqua Teen Carl]

The city does not offer blue bins to homes or recycle bins in public yet people wonder why everyone isn't recycling.

[robrobrob]

Originally Posted by Kate88

My roommate and I arrived back in Pittsburgh last night to a "warning" sign on our doorknob that we had violated Pittsburgh City Code 619. I googled it and came up with this website:

Recycling

I also skimmed over the code itself and it said an initial violation would have a minimum cost of $50 and $500 for repeat violations! For putting junk mail in the garbage!? Has anyone else had a similar warning? Has anyone actually been written up for this? I'm all for recycling, but to make it mandatory, and attach a $500 dollar fine - seems pretty ridiculous to me.

My in-laws got one of those a couple of weeks back. I am guessing that someone in power has decided to make a push for people to recycle more.