Recycling by the numbers; New bins coming?

 recycling-chartThe city now recycles almost 23 percent of solid waste and intends to do better, officials reported today.

Kansas City does not have a program for recycling glass, for instance, but is considering breaking into the field, officials reported to the mayor and city manager.

Ripple Glass, with its bins scattered throughout metropolitan area, estimates that it now recycles about 25 percent of area glass, officials said.

That is way up from what it used to be, but way below what is possible.

Ripple provides the glass to a plant in KCK that uses it to make fiberglass and that plant could use 100 percent of area glass, officials said.

Michael Shaw of the city’s solid waste management department said there had been talk of the city picking up glass with other recycling but that would be extremely expensive.

Another option under discussion: take glass dumpsters to neighborhoods weekly or periodically.

In other recycling, the city also is striving to do better. The goal calls for 80 percent of solid waste to be diverted from landfills by 2020.

Some new recycling options will be announced later this year, Shaw said.

As far as citizen satisfaction with curbside recycling services, the city is above the national average, officials reported.

For fiscal year 2014, 78 percent of city residents said they were satisfied compared to 73 percent of people nationally.

4 Comments

  1. Diane Capps says:

    Are we allowed to put waxed milk cartons and the like in our blue bins?

  2. Mr. D. says:

    >>Are we allowed to put waxed milk cartons and the like in our blue bins?<<

    Yes:

    http://kcmo.gov/publicworks/kcrecycles/

  3. Pam Gilford says:

    I emailed Bridging the Gap a while back and didn’t get an answer on this one either. Who’s got the definitive answer?

  4. Jeff Madden says:

    There is recycling tool at http://www.recyclespot.org plus plenty of recycling tips and information about various containers.

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