Wilsonville Spokesman Online

New recycling carts roll out

Most residential customers will receive a 65-gallon cart with garbage services this week

• By: Patrick Johnson  
• Published: 11/25/2009 1:24:54 PM

Photo By: Patrick JohnsonRecycling
Allied Waste employees had to assemble the roll-carts before they could be delivered to customers.

Big-time recycling
 
Most residential customers will receive a 65-gallon cart with garbage services this week
 
 
Some assembly required.
“It’s actually going pretty quick,” said Cheney Teuscher of Beaverton, as he pulled down another 12-foot tower of the stacked receptacles. “We should get these done by the time they have to be delivered.”
Assembly of the new beige recycling roll-carts had three temporary workers at Allied Waste Service quickly pulling apart the containers, then adding the axle and wheels, late last week.
It was what Frank Lonergan, operations manager, was hoping for. While he stood in the back lot where new carts were being dropped off, he calculated out loud how many carts were being assembled per hour.
“We should make it,” he concluded. “They are making good headway.”
Lonergan, whose task it is to figure out how to deliver more than 4,000 of the roll carts to garbage customers in the Wilsonville area, has the back lot of Allied scattered with beige roll carts. From vans to huge boxes, his employees started distributing the carts on Monday. Lonergan said he wants to get the carts out before the holidays – one of the busiest recycling times of the year.
 
“We get so much recycling during the week between Christmas and New Year’s it is amazing,” Lonergan said. “This will make it much cleaner and we won’t have used wrapping paper blowing down the street.”
Carts will be delivered during customers’ normal garbage day this week, he said.
Allied will start picking up the new roll carts next week. Carol Dion, Allied general manager, said carts only need to go curbside when they’re full.
“Especially with the 65-gallon carts, if you don’t fill it, you don’t have to roll it out until it is full,” she said. “It doesn’t save us any time, but it is more convenient for our customers if they only have to put it out when it’s full.”
Dion also said that customers with extra recycling bins can leave them curbside for pickup.
“We like to get those back if they aren’t being used for recycling,” she said.
The company has released several education pieces  through mail and newspaper ads regarding what can, and can’t go into the new roll carts. In addition, each cart also will have an attached information sheet.
“We want to get the information in front of as many people as possible,” Dion said.
“If someone does put the wrong thing in the cart, we probably won’t notice until it’s dumped automatically in the truck,” she said. “When we hear the wrong thing in there, the driver will put a note on your cart letting you know what you did wrong.”
As part of the council’s approval of the extra $5 per billing cycle for the program, customers can request a smaller 35-gallon roll cart if they receive a 65-gallon cart initially. The switch is free of charge.
“We will start flipping those out for customers starting in December,” Lonergan said.
 
What goes in
 
Mixed paper, newspaper, flattened cardboard, magazines, catalogs, phone books, cereal boxes, shoe boxes, paper bags, paper egg cartons, rinsed and drained milk, juice and soap cartons, clean plastic bottles, tubs, buckets, clean cans, empty aerosol cans and other scrap metal can all be placed in the carts.
What doesn’t
 Glass bottles and jars. They should go in the smaller bins and set at the curb.
 

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