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Jumping the (recycling) gun
Today was trash pickup day in the Highlands and a few people were overly anxious to use their new green recycling bins. The small sampling of the neighborhood streets I was on revealed that maybe one out of ten households had the green containers out with their maroon trash containers this morning. This evening, the (presumably) still filled recycling bins stood on their own at the edge of the street, waiting to be emptied.
Its really funny that these citizens are already using the new 96 gallon recycling toter because everybody that received a toter was informed that they cannot put these out curbside untill after January 1st?, doesn’t anybody understand or read directions anymore? I find it quite funny that the citizens of Lowell think that these are gonna get picked up before the start of the new single stream recycling program because they are out of luck! So to the people that had there recycling carts curbside this week? I suggest that you bring them in! It clearly says on the city’s solid waste and recycling website that you cannot use them UNTILL JANUARY 1ST of 2014! So untill of that time? Do not put them curbside untill January 1st!
I also saw many of the new recycling containers out for pick-up. Unfortunately, communication is a two-way street, and it is obvious that the City’s communication was not received by all.
That brings up another potential pitfall with the new system – with the automated pick-up (starting Jan 1st) there apparently will be no check on the contents of the recycling container, leading to the possibility of some nefarious dumping. The City should communicate that it would be a bad idea for anyone to do so.
@ Joe S. You are absolutely correct. I was driving down westford street the other day and noticed a few recycling carts at the curb filled with trash and some of the citizens are probably confused thinking that the green recycle cart is an ” extra ” for trash but obviously thats not the case as for its for recycling only. I don’t know if the citizens are confused? or they don’t take it seriously and don’t care? As for this, it seems like they don’t care because bit clearly says on the lid ” recycling only”. The first couple of weeks of the new program is gonna be alot of contamination of recycling mixed with garbage making the recycling not useful witch is a shame. I just hope that the program will work out just fine in the long run and eventually go smoothly. I am sure that the city will see witch ones that participate in the program the right way and the wrong. Lets just hope that everybody will put the correct contents into the correct containers and NOT have any contamination. We will see I guess?