WESTFIELD – The single-stream recycling program will be launched during the week of January 5th for residents on the recycling collection schedule for that week and for residents whose normal recycling week is slated for the following week.
Health Director Joseph Rouse said delivery of the new 65-gallon containers, which will become residents’ new trash containers, will begin during the first week of December.
“We’re starting the single-stream recycling in January because it will take a couple of weeks to get the new 65-gallon trash containers distributed,” Rouse said. “The contractors will be following the trash trucks as they collect along the routes.”
Rouse said that residents “should not start using the new 65-gallon containers, until the January 5th launch date.”
“The 65-gallon containers will be burgundy in color,” Rouse said. “There will be an information packet delivered with the new containers. That packet will have information explaining the whole program and also a sticker to put on the lid of the grey 96 gallon containers which will be used for the single-stream recycling collection.”
“Residents need to put that sticker on the lid of the 96-gallon container, not on the lid of the new 65-gallon containers,” Rouse said. “If residents do not put the sticker on the 96-gallon container to indicate that it’s recycling, it will not be collected.”
“I think having residents put the recycling sticker on the 96-gallon containers reinforces the fact that the container will now be used for recycling,” Rouse said. “We investigated having the vendor put the sticker on the 96-gallon containers, but they wanted $64,000 for a labor charge which was cost-prohibitive.”
“The drivers are trained to look at the size and color of the container; they don’t get out of the trucks to check (the contents), so if people are using the 96-gallon container for trash, it will be collected by the recycling truck and that will contaminate the (recycling) load,” Rouse said. “That could cost several thousand dollars to correct.”
Recycling loads contaminated with household trash will be turned away from the Municipal Recycling Facility in Springfield, which serves 78 communities in the western part of the state.
“That truck will be turned away and have to return to the Twiss Street Transfer Station where the load will be hand-sorted,” Rouse said. “That could cost thousands of dollars.”
Community Development Director Peter J. Miller Jr., said information related to the single-stream recycling program will be posted on the city’s web site (cityofwestfield.org) and that “there will be learning curve, but other communities have successfully implement single-stream recycling programs, so I don’t think it will be a problem here in Westfield.”
Miller said that city officials are also developing a plan to collect the present recycling bins.
“There will be a pick-up program because the bins have some value as recyclable material,” Miller said. “Residents will also have the choice of keeping those bins for some other use.”
