Atlanta Teams with The Recycling Partnership to Reduce Contamination

A group of City of Atlanta employees is gearing up to inspect recycling bins in four of the city’s recycling routes to determine if they are considered  contaminated or acceptable. The inspection, which will last eight weeks, is part of the Mayor’s office of Sustainability, the Office of Solid Waste Services and The Recycling Partnership’s Fleet on the Street project, which aims to reduce contamination in the city’s single stream recycling carts.

Recycling carts that are found contaminated will received an Oops Tag, which will include a list of errors that residents can resolve to resume recycling collection.

Atlanta isn’t the only city trying to cut down on contamination. Recently, the Chicago Department of Streets and Sanitation launched a new recycling education campaign, which will replace the city’s current orange contamination stickers with oops tags later this summer. During this campaign, the city will test out two oops tags: one that will be used on bins that contain contaminated items and another that will be used on carts of bagged recyclables found on single collection routes.

In addition, Seattle has tried to combat contamination for years with its food waste ordinance. And just last year, its waste study efforts led to a privacy lawsuit after a group of homeowners felt the city was invading their privacy by snooping through their trash and tagging bins that contained too much food waste.

The Atlanta Journal-Constitution has more:

Read the full story here.