Make St Augustine Cleaner and Greener

Historic City News was notified that the City of St Augustine and its contractor, Advanced Disposal, are launching the “Make St Augustine Cleaner and Greener” campaign.

During the week of September 24–28, Advanced Disposal will deliver a second recycle bin, free of charge, to every one of the city’s more than 4,600 customers. The purpose of the campaign is to encourage residents to increase the amount of recycled material.

Most everyone is certain they can place newspapers, glass and cans in their recycling bin, but those are just a few of the items welcomed. Chances are if you, as resident of St Augustine, recycle you are not recycling as much material as you could.

What is not accepted for recycling?

With such a wide variety of materials that are accepted for recycling, it is easier to remember the few materials that are not:

• Plastic bags
• Milk or juice cardboard cartons (these are poly-coated and cannot be recycled)
• Loose shredded paper (accepted if bagged)
• Pizza boxes from restaurants
• Styrofoam

What is accepted for recycling?

Materials that are accepted for recycling and may be placed in the recycling bins are:

• Newspapers and their inserts (on rainy days, please hold until next collection)
• Junk mail
• Corrugated cardboard (flattened out and cut in pieces 2′ by 3′ or smaller)
• Brown or gray fiber packages (soda cartons, cereal boxes, dry food packages)
• Metal containers and cans, including aluminum
• Plastics #1 and #2
• Plastic food, beverage, detergent bottles and jugs labeled #1 – #7
• Pill bottles
• Water bottles
• Glass, including jars and bottles whether clear, brown or green
• Magazines
• Catalogs
• Telephone books
• Brown paper bags (can also be used to hold excess recyclables)
• Office and copy paper
• Shredded paper (if bagged)
• File folders

Recycling has impact.

Many times, it is too easy to toss a recyclable into the trash instead of the recycling bin thinking one small amount will not make a difference, but it does:

• Two weeks of daily newspapers equals one full-grown tree.
• Newspaper and other paper products are recycled into writing paper, cereal boxes, paper towels, and tissue paper, cardboard and cereal boxes.
• In one year, a person uses approximately one 100-foot-tall Douglas fir tree in paper and wood products.
• Recycling 1-ton of paper saves 17 mature trees, 7,000 gallons of water, 3 cubic yards of landfill space, 2 barrels of oil, and 4,100 kilowatt-hours of electricity, enough energy to power the average home for five months.
• The junk mail receive in one day could produce enough energy to heat 250,000 homes.
• Plastic soda bottles are recycled into fiberfill, fleece wear, luggage, picnic tables, benches, carpet, buckets and pipe with just 40 recycled plastic soda bottles making enough fiberfill to stuff a sleeping bag.

Collection guidelines:

Even with the wide variety of material accepted for recycling, there is no requirement to separate materials; all items can go in either bin and bins should be curbside by 7:00 a.m. the collection day. For a map of St Augustine noting collection areas for each day, visit www.StAugRecycle.info.

The only two holidays on which there is no collection is Thanksgiving and Christmas.