Recycling – Tim Toomey City Councillor

Recycle Your E-Waste Tomorrow

Don't let your e-waste pile up. Dispose of it properly this Saturday. Image via Wikimedia Commons. — Don’t let your e-waste pile up. Dispose of it properly this Saturday. Image via Wikimedia Commons.

Just in time for spring cleaning, the City of Somerville is hosting an e-waste recycling event this Saturday, April 13, from 9am-noon at the Department of Public Works facility (1 Franey Rd.). The event is open to all Somerville residents and businesses, and while residents can simply show up, businesses are asked to fill out this form to help the City estimate the volume of e-waste.

The goal of the event is to keep toxic chemicals and heavy metals from finding their way into landfills. E-waste recycling programs have come under fire in recent years (60 Minutes did an excellent report on the subject a few years ago), but the City of Somerville has contracted with a company called ProTek, which will recycle the materials in an environmentally friendly way.

Bring your old laptops, routers, coffee makers, vacuum cleaners, microwaves, TVs and more to the event. If you have questions about whether your e-waste can be recycled, please call the Somerville DPW at 617-625-6600, extension 5070.

New Recycling Bins for Cambridge Residents

New recycling bins are coming for Cambridge residents. The old ones will be recycled, naturally.

The Cambridge Department of Public Works is replacing residents’ recycling bins. For free.

Starting today, the DPW has asked residents to leave their empty recycling bins at the curb until 5:30pm the day after your normal collection day. Basically, all you’ll have to do is take out your recycling as you normally would, then leave the bin at the curb until a new one appears the next day. This program ends on December 8.

If this sounds like an early Christmas gift, it’s not: many of the 64-gallon recycling bins are cracking, and with winter fast approaching, now is the time to replace them. The plastic from current bins will be recycled, the wheels will be reused, and the cost of the new bins will be paid by the manufacturer since the bins are still under warranty.

If you have any questions, please email the DPW at recycle@cambridgema.gov, or call 617-349-4800.

Somerville Begins Single Stream Recycling This Week

This week marked the beginning of the city-wide implementation of Somerville’s Single-Stream Recycling program. Single-stream recycling, which allows residents to dispose of all of their recyclable waste into one large bin without sorting, is designed to increase rates of recycling and make recycling more convenient for citizens. When single-stream recycling was tested in limited parts of Somerville last year, recycling rates increased nearly 60%, giving weight to the argument that single-stream encourages residents to recycle more. The City of Somerville expects to save money on its disposal costs through this program, as well.

The small bins that residents have used for their recycling in the past may either be kept or disposed of (the bins themselves are recyclable). To dispose of a bin, the City has asked that residents simply place it on top of their new recycling bin on trash pickup day.

All collection schedules will remain the same. Any questions about this program should be directed to Somerville’s constituent services office, which can be reached by dialing 311.