Residents of the City of Pittsburgh will need to adjust to new recycling rules beginning next week. The city announced Thursday that after Jan 1., refuse collection workers will no longer take recycling from the curbside unless it’s placed in designated blue bins. The city will no longer accept materials placed on the curb in blue recycling bags.
The city completed a multi-year distribution of more than 90,000 free recycling bins this summer, an effort to eliminate plastic bags from the recycling stream and encourage more residents to participate in the curbside recycling program.
“Every resident should now have a recycling bin. We need everyone to put those materials in the bins,” said Shawn Wigle, superintendent of the Bureau of Environmental Services.
Loose items should be placed in the bins, Wigle said, not bagged inside them or bound together.
Wigle noted that the plastic bags get caught up in the processing equipment, which can damage expensive gear and create headaches for crews sorting the material for resale.
The city will also stop taking cardboard from the curb outside of recycling pickup days. Previously, crews would collect cardboard regardless of whether recycling was due to be picked up. Boxes must be flattened and bundled together for pickup.
Wigle said with more and more delivery packaging appearing at the curb, the city has to make a change to recover more cardboard material in the recycling stream. The city was paying $33 a ton to landfill the boxes collected on non-recycling weeks. Wigle estimated the city could receive as much as $75 a ton to recycle it instead.
“It’s very much in everyone’s best interest that we actually recycle those as opposed to landfilling,” Wigle said. “Moving forward, we really need our residents to take those, break the boxes down, bundle them into one or two boxes and only put them out on the recycling days.”
The city will at first simply leave behind cardboard and bagged recycling and attempt to educate residents about the changes. But residents could face a citation of $50 if residents are continually out of compliance.
Residents will receive a flyer in the mail outlining the changes and noting trash and recycling pickup dates for 2024, according to Mayor Ed Gainey’s office.
Officials held a press conference Thursday to announce the changes. The Gainey administration also reminded residents about the upcoming enforcement of a citywide ban on plastic bags at businesses.
Tobias Raether, the city’s environmental enforcement manager, said businesses can expect enforcement of that ban to begin Jan 1. The city soft-launched the bag ban in October, but has allowed a grace period for businesses to adjust.
“We've created this allowance over the last two-and-a-half months … to give businesses more time. We'll start that enforcement process a little bit more seriously” on Jan. 1, Raether said.
Under the ordinance, businesses are required to stop distributing plastic bags, charge a minimum of 10 cents for each paper bag distributed, and post signage informing customers of the ban.
Once enforcement begins, businesses will receive a warning on their first violation. A second violation will incur a $100 fine followed by a $250 fine for every subsequent violation.
