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City's automated garbage program hits the
streets
The City's shiny, new automated garbage and recycling collection
trucks are already rolling through several San Antonio neighborhoods.
Residents in in eight areas of the city are receiving two City-issued
96-gallon wheeled carts -- a brown cart for trash and a blue cart for
recyclables. Automated collection will operate on a twice a week
collection schedule with one day for garbage and the other day for
recycling. Residents who have received the new carts should begin
using them immediately and follow the twice a week collection schedule
for their area.
“We are excited to introduce this new and
improved system of collecting residential solid waste and
recyclables,” said Rose Ryan, Environmental Services Department
interim director. “This system, used by many municipalities
nationwide, is one of the most advanced in the solid waste industry.
Not only does automated collection help beautify the community, it
also enhances the quality of life.”
In order to make recycling easier, the City has expanded the recycling
materials accepted through the residential curbside recycling program
(see list of recyclables to the right).
“With the addition of more recyclables
accepted curbside, we envision that residents’ blue recycling carts
will be a lot fuller than the brown cart. We anticipate recycling will
become an ‘automatic’ practice in our residents’ households,” said
Ryan.
Automated collection uses a driver to
operate a special truck equipped with a mechanical arm that grabs and
lifts the cart from the curb, empties the contents and returns the
cart to its original position.
As landfill and other costs continued to rise, it was necessary for
the City to re-invent the garbage collection operation. The manual
collection method was outdated, hazardous to workers, and if continued
would by costly to operate. The change from manual to automated
collection was needed to address the City’s 43% turnover rate for
collection employees and the high cost of worker’s compensation.
On average, the City experiences about 20
solid waste related injuries per month, or 1.2 injuries per work day.
Nationally the job of solid waste collections ranks in the top five
most hazardous jobs, and the City is paying over $1 million annually
in worker’s compensation costs. With automation, these worker’s
compensation costs go away.
For more information, call 3-1-1 or visit
www.sanantonio.gov/enviro.
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Can it be
recycled?
Fill up your blue cart
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Paper: Most types of clean paper
(i.e. cereal, cracker and food boxes, magazines, catalogs,
telephone directories, junk mail, calendars, stationery, paper
bags, non-metallic gift wrap, flattened cardboard, etc.).
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Plastics: Labeled #1 - #7 (i.e.
water and soda bottles; milk jugs; detergent bottles and jugs;
plastic juice containers; condiment bottles and jars; shampoo
and lotion bottles; meat trays; cookie containers, plastic
grocery bags (securely tied), etc.). Remove caps from
containers, and rinse any food or liquid residue from
containers and trays before recycling.
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Aluminum tins and metal cans:
Steel, tin and aluminum food and beverage cans; empty aerosol
cans with cap and nozzle removed; and aluminum pie pans. Rinse
any food or liquid residue; no need to remove paper labels.
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Glass bottles and jars of all
colors: Beverage bottles and jars, condiment jars, other food
bottles and jars. Remove cap and rinse prior to recycling; no
need to remove paper labels.
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