CLEVELAND — The City of Cleveland’s recycling journey has been a long time coming, and it is finally chugging along.
The city began picking up materials curbside starting mid-June. Since then, 42,000 households have signed up for the program.
Residents such as Patrick Vopat hope their trash will be turned into something new.
“Doing that instead of throwing stuff into a big landfill, I think it’s really beneficial for the environment,” he said.
Since the program launched, the city says it has recycled 167 tons from homes and drop-off sites, which equals 14 semi-trailers worth of debris, according to Ren Brumfield, the recycling coordinator for the city.
All of the recycled material from Cleveland will be kept in Ohio, around 80% of it staying for domestic use.
It takes around two months for an aluminum can to be turned into a new one, and just a month for a glass bottle to be recreated. Cardboard has an even smaller turnaround, just one to two weeks' time.
The roll out has been successful so far, but still has some issues to work out such as what can and cannot be recycled.
“There are a lot of people that are yet to actually start with their recycling, but I think we’re on a good track,” Brumfield said.
Items such as plastic bags, yard waste and disposable cups for coffee machines cannot go inside of the blue recycle bins without a sticker to know residents are enrolled.
“The ones without the strikers are going in the same truck as the ones with the black trash cans,” Brumfield said.
Due to an excessive amount of residents enrolling in the program and a backlog of stickers needing to be mailed out, the city has extended the deadline.
Residents have until Aug. 31 to register.
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