Larger Size Trash Cans Needed

Municipalities across the country are meeting with great success in their efforts at recycling. Their efforts are helping extend the lifetimes of landfills. This is considered to be of critical importance because of the great difficulty there is in opening

up any new sources for trash and garbage. Residents who live in an area will not want to have a dump in their neighborhood. People will also object to having a steady stream of garbage trucks go by. Because recycling reduces the amount of material going in to a local landfill, it will allow the site to remain in operation for a longer period until the rated capacity is reached.

Sometimes there is a new permitting process that allows the site to receive a new and enlarged capacity rating. This is often seen by a community to be better option than establishing a wholly new site nearby. Eventually however a load capacity will be reached, and the place will have to be shut down.

Recycling also is becoming an increasingly valuable revenue source for many municipalities. There is cash to be had in items such as paper, plastic, and metals of all sorts. There is a well developed network of dealers who specialize in recyclables. One problem many cash strapped locales may have however is coming up with the funds initially to buy the products needed to make a recycling program work. Receptacles must be purchased to store the materials until they can be transferred to a reprocessing center.

Maryland Shows the Way

The Town Council of North Beach has recently decided to purchase bigger bins for their residents as a method of encouraging more recycling. It is further hoped that the larger bins will in the end save the municipality money. The reasoning is that larger trash cans will allow them to lessen the number of times the discards must be picked up. At the council session in which the vote on the matter took place, it was pointed out that other cities in the area had saved considerable sums by switching to larger bins.

The matter was met with mutual agreement. Other council members cited anecdotal evidence that people wanted to recycle more and would recycle more if they simply had a bigger bin to store their waste items into.

There were some objections involving the issue of costs. A council member pointed out that he recycles with his own trash can that he bought, not the city. He expressed disbelief that a person would not recycle if they so desired just because the city had not provided them with a receptacle to put the material in.

In the end, the decision was unanimous to put the matter out for bid. When the price quotes come back, the city council will have to vote once again on whether to actually buy the new and larger bins. At present, the trash collection program will remain untouched. There will be no curtailment of service or lengthening of time between pick ups.