The City of Greensboro has released the new recycling guide for 2015, and I notice a lot of great changes! recyclables are still picked up on an every-other-week schedule, but the scope of recyclables accepted has been broadened, especially for plastic. Remember when you could only recycle #1 and #2 plastic? While that was great for milk jugs and soda bottles, it still left us with yogurt and pudding cups, microwave-dinner-plates and margarine tubs knocking around.
Well, not any more! According to the handy 2015 recycling guide, you can now recycle almost any kind of plastic, from small food containers (empty and dry, please!) to big ol' plastic lawn chairs, jugs, and buckets. They do not take garden hoses, plastic sheeting, or plastic bags, but you can recycle bags at many area grocery stores, donate your old hose, and...why would you give up plastic sheets? Use them for dropcloths! And to settle the age-old debate of whether or not to leave the caps on the plastic bottles, the official word is that it's fine (although I would recommend leaving the caps off of milk jugs so that they can dry out and won't smell oogy, but that's a personal choice)
Greensboro also accepts most kinds of metal--aluminum, steel and tin cans, pots and pans, and even aluminum foil, which used to be persona non grata in a recycling program. As with the plastic containers, please make sure they aren't all gloppy with food. Rinse them out. The city even takes aerosol spray cans; just remove the caps. Please do not put cords, car parts or electronics out for recycling (that stuff is hazardous waste).
Paper and glass are easy--all kinds of glass bottles and jugs (no lids), just no mirrors, windows or dishware. All kinds of paper, cardboard and chipboard (stuff like cereal boxes) is acceptable (even pizza boxes!), just don't put paper towels, tissue or diapers in there. That's biohazard stuff!
All in all, I would say we have an excellent recycling program here in Greensboro. The best part, besides the handy curbside pickup, is that you don't even need to sort the things into separate containers--everything that can be recycled just goes into the brown container and to the curb, and they take care of it from there, bless their hearts. Now there is no excuse whatsoever not to recycle, so go for it!
You can also find What's Good in Greensbroro? on Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/Whats-Good-in-Greensboro-848569635208317/ . See you there!
Image from Pixabay http://pixabay.com/en/woman-girl-black-female-rubbish-160281/ This girl isn't as lucky as we are, because she has to sort stuff.
Image from Pixabay http://pixabay.com/en/woman-girl-black-female-rubbish-160281/ This girl isn't as lucky as we are, because she has to sort stuff.
Here in Miami, the recycling folks are still restricting us to certain types of plastic containers and other materials. Why they don't recycle margarine and yogurt containers is beyond my capacity to comprehend.
ReplyDeleteI think advances are being made in recycling that are making recycling materials that used to be "challenging" a lot easier. Miami should look into contracting with companies that are more capable of this!
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