This Wednesday is a red Wednesday, which means trash and recycling pickup. Please make sure you pick up containers after pickup tomorrow night. They do not belong on the sidewalk after tomorrow night.

In recycling news, there’s a new article in The Atlantic entitled “Inside the Surprisingly Lucrative World of Cardboard Theft”.

Excerpt:

The way it’s supposed to work is that approximately 150,000 commercial establishments in New York contract with waste-removal companies* who are licensed with the Business Integrity Commission, which among other duties is responsible for helping fight corruption in the city’s garbage-management trade after the Mafia’s intrusion in the 1990s. These authorized haulers schedule pick-up times with the businesses and whisk the waste away in professional-looking trucks.

The thieves, on the other hand, drive in trucks rented from U-Haul and Penske or even unmarked Econolines. They cruise slowly down the street manhandling bales of cardboard into the vehicles. Or they’ll dodge behind a large store like Costco to retrieve spoils left outside by the Dumpsters.

This Wednesday is a red Wednesday, which means trash and recycling pickup. Please make sure you pick up containers after pickup tomorrow night. They do not belong on the sidewalk after tomorrow night.

In recycling news, as London prepares for the Olympics, it is also working to boost plastic bottle recycling. From RecyclingToday.com:

The campaign is being supported by London Mayor Boris Johnson, who says that around 1.4 million metric tons of post-consumer plastic in the United Kingdom is currently available for recycling.

Closed Loop says around 1.8 million metric tons of post consumer plastics are generated each year in the U.K, 580,000 metric tons of which consists of plastic bottles. Of that amount, around 300,000 metric tons of plastic bottles are land-filled each year, according to Closed Loop.

“Taking time to chuck your unwanted plastic bottles into the recycling bin, rather than your rubbish bin, is not only good for the environment, but great for our wallets too,” states Johnson in a news release.

This Wednesday is a red Wednesday, which means trash and recycling pickup. Please make sure you pick up containers after pickup tomorrow night. They do not belong on the sidewalk after tomorrow night.

In recycling news, recycling company Newark Group VP Jonathan Gold offers views on single-stream collection and processing at a Congressional hearing.

“As an industry, we now collect two-thirds of all paper available for recycling and have increased the recycling rate for paper by 81 percent over the past 20 years,” said Gold in his testimony. “Despite this, there is still an enormous amount of paper that is not being collected and there remains quite a bit of misinformation in the data that suggests that more of what is collected for recycling is actually used in the creation of new products. That’s where the need for better information enters.”

In commenting about the practice of single-stream recycling, Gold remarked that recovered single-stream recyclables often contain materials that contaminate the usability of the paper. “The EPA does the best job they can at the moment in reporting on the tonnage of collected recyclables, but information isn’t really available to them regarding how much of that tonnage is later diverted to landfills. Better information on this could impact future decisions regarding single vs. dual stream recycling while leading to better solutions to maximize sustainability and continue the kind of economic job growth that results from new product development of recycled materials,” Gold stated.

This Wednesday is a red Wednesday, which means trash and recycling pickup. Please make sure you pick up containers after pickup tomorrow night. They do not belong on the sidewalk after tomorrow night. Fun recycling fact: Auto manufacturer Honda Motors Co. Ltd., Tokyo, has announced plans to start reusing the rare earth metals that can be extracted from used nickel-metal hydride batteries by the end of 2012.

This Wednesday is a red Wednesday, which means trash and recycling pickup. Please make sure you pick up containers after pickup tomorrow night. They do not belong on the sidewalk after tomorrow night.

Fun recycling fact: The plastic from 5 soda bottles can completely insulate a ski jacket.

This Wednesday is a red Wednesday, which means trash and recycling pickup. Please make sure you pick up containers after pickup tomorrow night. They do not belong on the sidewalk after tomorrow night.

Fun recycling fact:

The US population discards each year 16,000,000,000 diapers, 1,600,000,000 pens, 2,000,000,000 razor blades, 220,000,000 car tires, and enough aluminum to rebuild the US commercial air fleet four times over.

This Wednesday is a red Wednesday, which means trash and recycling pickup. Please make sure you pick up containers after pickup tomorrow night. They do not belong on the sidewalk after tomorrow night.

Fun recycling fact:

Used aluminum beverage cans are the most recycled item in the U.S., but other types of aluminum, such as siding, gutters, car components, storm window frames, and lawn furniture can also be recycled.

This Wednesday is a red Wednesday, which means trash and recycling pickup. Please make sure you pick up containers after pickup tomorrow night. They do not belong on the sidewalk after tomorrow night.

Fun recycling fact:

A single quart of motor oil, if disposed of improperly, can contaminate up to 2,000,000 gallons of fresh water.
Motor oil never wears out, it just gets dirty. Oil can be recycled, re-refined and used again, reducing our reliance on imported oil.