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Old 11-09-2011, 08:46 AM
 
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We live off a busy road, and since we've moved I haven't seen any recycling garbage trucks...what should we do about that? we have a ton of boxes (cereal, diapers, wipes...you name it) plus the glass bottles, and it really pains me to throw them in the regular garbage. We used to recycle them in FL.

Thoughts?
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Old 11-09-2011, 08:49 AM
 
Location: Pittsburgh, PA
1,519 posts, read 2,666,546 times
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Quote:
Originally Posted by algia View Post
We live off a busy road, and since we've moved I haven't seen any recycling garbage trucks...what should we do about that? we have a ton of boxes (cereal, diapers, wipes...you name it) plus the glass bottles, and it really pains me to throw them in the regular garbage. We used to recycle them in FL.

Thoughts?
You're in Mt. Lebanon, right?

Mt. Lebanon, PA - Official Website - Garbage Collection & Curbside Recycling

Recycling pickup is every other week on your regular trash pickup day. Mt. Lebanon offers single-stream recycling, which means that all recyclable materials may be placed together in a container (or containers) identified by recycling stickers. Recycling stickers are available at the Customer Service Center in the Municipal Building, 710 Washington Road. A recycling container should weigh no more than 50 pounds. All cans, boxes, jars, etc. must be empty and free of food waste. Items collected are:

Paper: paperboard boxes (such as those used for cereal, tissues and shoes), copier paper, magazines, newspaper, catalogs, junk mail including envelopes and telephone books. Corrugated cardboard must be flattened and no longer than 14 inches.

Metal: aluminum, steel, tin and bimetal cans, aluminum foil and foil products.

Glass: clear, green and amber glass containers.

Plastic: Items numbered 1 through 7 on the bottom. (Examples include: baby wipe containers, yogurt cups, household cleaner bottles, margarine tubs, shampoo bottles, etc.)

You may NOT recycle: Styrofoam, fast food wrappers, food waste, paper towels, ceramics or bathroom trash. Although bags or boxes are recyclable, please do not place any items inside them.

The Allegheny County Health Department publishes a Recycling Resource Directory of places in the county that accept various materials for recycling. For a copy, please contact the Health Department at 412-578-8390.

If you have questions, call Mt. Lebanon’s department of public works at 412-343-3403.
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Old 11-09-2011, 08:59 AM
 
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Yeah, I just read this, where would we get the container from, cause I can get the sticker today.....
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Old 11-09-2011, 09:04 AM
 
Location: Pittsburgh
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Sounds like you just put the sticker on whatever container you want, e.g., one of your existing trash cans, or you go and buy a new one.
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Old 11-09-2011, 09:12 AM
 
Location: Pittsburgh area
9,912 posts, read 24,581,159 times
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Looks like they don't provide a container, so you'll have to get your own. You could just buy a Rubbermaid bin at Target or Lowe's or whatever, although you can also find bins already marked recycling that are blue or green. Other than that, pretty good! Ours is stuck in the dark ages. Yeah, we get a free container, woo, but I can only put out glass, metal and 1-2 plastic. They don't take any paper from the curb. (That said, I do get a little cynical sometimes at what they might be doing behind the scenes with the 3-7 plastics. Right into the landfill, maybe. )

I never realized, I wonder if we're not supposed to put things like blue glass bottles in the bin? Every once in a while there's a blue one.
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Old 11-10-2011, 03:10 AM
 
43,011 posts, read 107,779,594 times
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Quote:
Originally Posted by greg42 View Post
Ours is stuck in the dark ages. Yeah, we get a free container, woo, but I can only put out glass, metal and 1-2 plastic. They don't take any paper from the curb.
I suspect most townships don't do paper because they dont' get as much money for it.

Quote:
Originally Posted by greg42 View Post
(That said, I do get a little cynical sometimes at what they might be doing behind the scenes with the 3-7 plastics. Right into the landfill, maybe. )
That's a myth, at least for townships that don't have their own garbage trucks.

Garage companies pay our townships for the recycling residents do. As a result, the garbage company would be losing money to toss everything in a landfill.

What blows my mind is that the township and school district workers don't recycle. Schools have students use the recycling bins at the end of the school year and the janitors just toss it all into the dumpsters. If the township managers knew this, they'd flip out.
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Old 11-10-2011, 07:12 AM
 
Location: Pittsburgh area
9,912 posts, read 24,581,159 times
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Hopes View Post
Garage companies pay our townships for the recycling residents do. As a result, the garbage company would be losing money to toss everything in a landfill.
No, I get that. I mean specifically, for many years, we could only put plastic labeled 1-2 in most bins, and as far as I know ours continues to be this way. (I'm pretty sure they would have notified us if anything changed.) That gets recycled, no question. But there has been in recent years a move to have 1-5 or even 1-7 all put into the recycling stream. I haven't heard about new processes for what they are doing with the 3-7 types. (Not that I've gone looking very hard for that info either. I suppose I should do some searching.) Type 7 is in fact "Other" so it could be a number of different things!

I figure there's a couple of things possibly in play with this change. First is probably that people weren't doing a good job of self-sorting anyway, so since all the plastic is showing up, and sorting must happen anyway, might as well make it official and let people put all the types into the bin. Now the result of having people do this is one of two things, or maybe a combo of both of them: new processes for reusing the additional plastic materials and tossing the stuff that has no process for being recycled. Why would they bother to collect the latter? Well, because people won't sort it right anyway and because it'll make us feel good that "Wow, we can put plastic types 1-7 in the bin now."

I'm sure there's some easy to find info online about what is done with the stuff. I just haven't looked for it yet.
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Old 11-10-2011, 10:41 AM
 
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Good question, Greg. I'm a terrible recycler. Gallon milk containrs, plastic soda bottles and aluminum cans are all I do.

Anything that needs to be cleaned goes into the garbage. It's not out of laziness.

I view it as a waste of water---a use of a natural resource that directly impacts me financially.
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Old 11-10-2011, 11:36 AM
gg
 
Location: Pittsburgh
26,137 posts, read 25,848,292 times
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Here in the Borough, we can put any recyclable item in the nice green recycling can the Borough supplies us at no cost. Membership has its privileges.
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Old 11-10-2011, 11:40 AM
 
Location: Pittsburgh
29,676 posts, read 34,200,947 times
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Quote:
Anything that needs to be cleaned goes into the garbage. It's not out of laziness.
I half-heartedly rinse out all of my recyclables, but none of them are squeaky clean. Perhaps I'm gumming up the works, but at least I'm doing it, amirite?
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