RE: adding textiles to curbside

Lacaze, Skip (Skip.Lacaze@ci.sj.ca.us)
Mon, 13 Dec 1999 16:02:37 -0800

The City of San Jose's Recycle Plus program collects textiles from both
single and multi-family homes. For collection, residents are asked to bag
the textiles and put the bag in their "mixed recyclables" container, along
with food and beverage cans, juice boxes and milk cartons, all plastic
containers with numbers, all polystyrene packaging (we ask that peanuts be
bagged, too), and small scrap metals. Single-family residents provide their
own garbage can for mixed recyclables--the cans were freed for use when we
provided carts for garbage in 1993. Multi-family complexes with garbage
dumpsters get carts for recycling. The mixed recyclables cart also is used
for glass bottles and jars, which are kept in a separate bin for
single-family setouts.

Textiles that are wet or contaminated with food waste are likely to be
recycled or discarded, rather than reused, so the bagging is important.

-----Original Message-----
>Date: Thu, 09 Dec 1999 15:19:06 +0000
>From: Brenda Platt <bplatt@ilsr.org>
>To: greenyes@earthsystems.org, SueBNelson@aol.com
>Subject: [GRRN] adding textiles to curbside
>
>Sue,
>one important key to adding textiles to curbside is to keep them dry and
>clean. To that end, most programs collecting textiles either provide
>residents with specially marked plastic bags or ask residents to put
>textiles in plastic bags. Residents can then set out the bags alongside
>their other recyclables. Truck crews can then throw the bags in with
>the compartment used to collect paper. Residents don't have bags of
>textiles every week as they would other commonly discarded material, so
>it's usually not a capacity issue on the trucks. At the materials
>recovery facility, a worker can pick off the bags of textiles after the
>paper is unloaded onto a conveyor. I am not familiar with any programs
>that collect textiles in the same compartment as food and beverage
>containers.
>Cheers,
>Brenda
>
>******************************************
>Brenda A. Platt
>Director, Materials Recovery
>Institute for Local Self-Reliance
>2425 18th Street, NW
>Washington, DC 20009
>Ph (202) 232-4108 fax (202) 332-0463
>Web: <http://www.ilsr.org>
>******************************************