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Greenup Providence

mikearden

By mikearden
in Providence

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mikearden Unincorporated Area

mikearden

Posted
Posted

Please reconsider some of the rules of the Greenup program. I live in a two family house. We share the recycling bins. We all dump our bottles and cans into one blue bin. We put all our paper into one green bin. If we have extra paper or bottles we use an extra bin. But today they only collected one of our trash cans because we only had three recycling bins out.

The people collecting the garbage have no way of knowing which unit put their recycling bins out and which did not. So they may leave a full garbage can uncollected for a resident who put their recycling bins out.

The Greenup program should be modified so that if two recycling bins are out they collect all trash cans.

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runawayjim Metropolis

runawayjim

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That makes sense. I lived in a house that was that way. We were the only ones who recycled for quite some time in a 3 unit house. Eventually the others recycled, but there was never a reason to use more than 1 blue and 1 green bin, but we usually had 2 trash barrels.

Now that we're in our own house, we have like 1 or 2 bags of trash and just a small number of recycles in the bins.

Anyone know why you can't recycle soda boxes or 6 pack holders? They're the same materials as cereal boxes.

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Cotuit Megalopolis

Cotuit

Posted
Posted

Please reconsider some of the rules of the Greenup program. I live in a two family house. We share the recycling bins. We all dump our bottles and cans into one blue bin. We put all our paper into one green bin. If we have extra paper or bottles we use an extra bin. But today they only collected one of our trash cans because we only had three recycling bins out.

The people collecting the garbage have no way of knowing which unit put their recycling bins out and which did not. So they may leave a full garbage can uncollected for a resident who put their recycling bins out.

The Greenup program should be modified so that if two recycling bins are out they collect all trash cans.

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runawayjim Metropolis

runawayjim

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Wha!? Nothing I have heard says that there needs to be a direct trash to recycling container quota. I would contact my city councilor and complain if I were you. That is not acceptable. I live in a multifamily and we had all our trash collected.

Oh, and I never got any notification about the program starting here on Federal Hill. I only knew about it because I make myself aware of these kind of things. If I was just an average guy, living my life, I'd have had no way of knowing this program had started or was even on the horizon. Very sloppy on the city's part in my opinion.

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mikearden Unincorporated Area

mikearden

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I called the city's environmental office today to complain and they said if there were not 2 recycling bins per trash can it would not be picked up. I also sent an email to Kevin Jackson's office, but haven't heard anything from them.

We did get a sticker on our trash cans a few weeks ago that told of the upcoming program. But today there were letters stuck to almost every trash can on my street, and hardly any trash got picked up.

As for the 6-pack boxes(and all beer boxes, supposedly), I have heard they are not recyclable because there is some chemical added to them to make them more durable if wet.

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Dan Hamlet

Dan

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I have an update. I got some nice old bins from a friend in Warwick. Everything was cool for awhile. I put the stuff out, it disappears. I have seen the bottle brigade drive by every week digging through my bin and taking all my beer bottles, which is mildly amusing to me since the Green Up program was supposed to generate a big increase in recycling in Providence.

But seriously, did they have to take my blue bin too? Maybe it wasn't the bottle guy. Maybe a municipal employee from Warwick drove by my house and noticed that city property was being used illegally by someone in Providence. Or maybe there really is a black market for blue and green bins. I blame TheAnk for this. I believe he should do what's good for everybody and spread the bins around.

So I'm now out of compliance through no fault of my own, and I'm getting a little aggravated. Can someone explain why we are we the only city in Rhode Island that doesn't issue residents green and blue cans for recycling? No one would steal these and we'd have a much better shot at reaching the recycling goal that the city has set. It would also be way better because the blue and green recycling cans have lids. Snow, rain, and rats can all get in the bins and it makes a big mess.

We managed to get the trash cans, finally. Why not recycling cans, too?!

/Rant

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runawayjim Metropolis

runawayjim

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Posted

I have an update. I got some nice old bins from a friend in Warwick. Everything was cool for awhile. I put the stuff out, it disappears. I have seen the bottle brigade drive by every week digging through my bin and taking all my beer bottles, which is mildly amusing to me since the Green Up program was supposed to generate a big increase in recycling in Providence.

But seriously, did they have to take my blue bin too? Maybe it wasn't the bottle guy. Maybe a municipal employee from Warwick drove by my house and noticed that city property was being used illegally by someone in Providence. Or maybe there really is a black market for blue and green bins. I blame TheAnk for this. I believe he should do what's good for everybody and spread the bins around.

So I'm now out of compliance through no fault of my own, and I'm getting a little aggravated. Can someone explain why we are we the only city in Rhode Island that doesn't issue residents green and blue cans for recycling? No one would steal these and we'd have a much better shot at reaching the recycling goal that the city has set. It would also be way better because the blue and green recycling cans have lids. Snow, rain, and rats can all get in the bins and it makes a big mess.

We managed to get the trash cans, finally. Why not recycling cans, too?!

/Rant

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jencoleslaw Town

jencoleslaw

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What I'm hearing about single stream isn't good. We have it down here in VA and I have learned that glass ends up only being ground up and put into cement and asphalt, so it isn't really recycled and reused, and frankly glass is the best thing to turn back into glass. I know that much of it gets sorted, but the glass thing is a huge disappointment. After all these years of getting people to separate their paper and cardboard from cans and bottles, just to throw it all in a thing that looks amazingly like a trash can is not good for the movement, I don't think. We could not get our grandfather to understand that the trash can with the blue lid was for recycling and the trash can with the green lid was for trash, so i suspect that after we moved out, all his recycling was contaminated with trash, meaning that it would all go into the landfill or the incinerator...

and the bottle pickers in the city will continue to deflate Providence's recycle rate. I don't think there is any to deal with that.

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runawayjim Metropolis

runawayjim

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Well, the problem is that the city's recycling rates appear low because all the stuff is picked out of the bins. See, all the stuff that is recycled (ie., picked up out of the green and blue bins) is weighed and if more than half of it is going into a shopping card and brought to seekonk for nickles then the weight is way off. So while it isn't REALLY a problem because all that stuff is getting turned back in and recycled, it really IS a problem for Providence who has to meet a certain rate by some mandate. I could be wrong on the mandate, but I don't think I am. it has been a while since i was all involved in that.

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