By Nathan Ham
Residents in the town of Boone will have a new recycling program coming up at the end of August.
The smaller, 18-gallon blue bins will be replaced by 96-gallon roll-out carts from August 27-31 with all single-family residences having these newer, bigger recycling bins by the official program start date of September 1.
According to Marsha Owens, Boone’s Sanitation and Recycling Coordinator, the additional corrugated cardboard from residences made this change in the recycling program an important one.
“Corrugated cardboard is probably one of the most sought after recyclables, but we were only picking up from commercial sites,” Owens said. “Now that society has become an online shopping society with people purchasing so much online now, it is putting a lot of corrugated cardboard in the residential areas. We want to be able to capture as much recycling as we can to keep it out of the waste stream.”
Owens added that with the extra cardboard came the need for larger recycle bins, which will be distributed at the end of the month.
Part of the new recycling program also includes the elimination of the recycling center on Horn in the West Drive. A sign at the site says that it will permanently close on Friday, August 31. Residents can take their recyclables to the closest convenience site location at 336 Landfill Road off of U.S. Highway 421 South.
“Through the process of renegotiating the contract with our hauler (Republic Services), we found that in order to fund the new recycling program and add the larger bins, it put a crunch on the budget,” Owens said. “Since there is a recycling center a mile and a half away from this one, it’s not that far out of folks’ way to go to the convenience center on Landfill Road.”
The one drawback from this change is that the Horn in the West site has been available to people 24 hours a day, seven days a week. The convenience center is open for select hours only. However, the convenience center is open seven days a week. It’s open Monday through Friday from 6:30 a.m. until 7 p.m., on Saturday from 8 a.m. until 7 p.m. and on Sunday from 1 p.m. until 5 p.m.
As the rollout of the new recycling bins starts in roughly two weeks, Owens says that information about the new bins, including what can and cannot be recycled, as well as a calendar highlighting pickup days will be included.
“Pickup will be the same day as always, but we will be picking up recycling every other week instead of every week. Garbage will be picked up the same day as it always has every week,” said Owens.
Additional details about the new recycling program can be found here. If you have further questions, call the Town of Boone Public Works Office at 828-268-6230.
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