4-23-2017

City of Stockton residential garbage customers, let’s “Recycle Right!” Did you know that placing garbage in a recycling or green waste cart requires the whole cart to be thrown out as garbage? Despite what people think, the recyclable material in contaminated bins cannot be separated and end up in the landfill. You can help reduce contamination in the recycling and green waste carts by picking the right sized cart for your household’s needs.

Since one size does not fit all, Stockton residents can choose between three (3) sizes for their garbage cart: 32-gallon (holds about 3 tall kitchen bags), 60 gallon (holds about 4 tall kitchen bags), or 90 gallon cart (holds about 5 tall kitchen bags). The 60-gallon recycling cart and the 90-gallon green & food waste cart are provided at no extra charge. When the waste haulers service the carts, they collect and transport the garbage to a landfill, recyclables to a recycling processing facility, and green & food waste to a composting facility. Waste haulers can’t deliver trash-contaminated loads to recycling and composting facilities. It is important that carts are used only for the correct material.

Since contamination of green waste and recycling carts has become an increasing problem in Stockton, the waste haulers (Republic Services & Waste Management), in collaboration with the city’s Solid Waste & Recycling staff, have proposed a pilot project to bring attention to the situation. The project will begin with a content study of a green waste load from a selected residential route. The load will be weighed, the contamination removed and weighed, and the results documented. Educational information will be mailed out to the residents in the pilot area. Inspectors will observe the green waste carts for a number of weeks and place tags on carts that are contaminated. If contamination continues and the carts are tagged three times, the green waste cart will be removed.

After 6 to 8 weeks, another content study will be conducted to examine the amount of contamination in the green waste load from the pilot area. The results will be compared to the first study to gauge improvement in the quality of the load. Residents can help reduce contamination by requesting the right size garbage cart and not placing garbage into the recycling or green waste cart.