Recycling comes to ABQ neighborhoods

ALBUQUERQUE (KRQE) - Starting soon, recycling residential trash will be as easy as wheeling it to your curb. 

The City of Albuquerque Solid Waste Management Department estimates that by the middle of 2013, all the neighborhoods in Albuquerque will participate in the curb side recycling program.

The city had initially distributed about 10,000 units throughout the city a couple of years ago. Starting in March of this year, about 22,000 more were distributed through a pilot program.

The city wide expansion is all part of the Integrated Waste Management Plan. This looks at solid waste practices and making it more efficient. It also includes the future of the entire program in how it will benefit the environment.

"Because it's so convenient and easy and people really like to recycle," says Jill Holbert, Acting Director of the CABQ Solid Waste Management Department.  "There's more materials available to recycle through the new program. The cart program, we expect to go up to 25 percent diversion from the landfill which is significant."

In an executive summary prepared for the city, residential waste makes up nearly half of the 507,000 tons of waste going to the dumps.  That same summary also predicts that over 260,000 tons could be available for recycling.

Right now, residents pay $1.95 a month to fund the recycling program, but with all the material recycled officials say the program will essentially pay for itself.  The city has partnered with Friedman Recycling to process the material and share in the profits.

"We see a lot more participation in recycling in those pilot areas upwards of 70 - 80 percent of the households participating when they have a cart," says Holbert.

Eleven sections of town currently have the program running. Everything from tin and aluminum cans to almost all paper products and most plastics now qualify for placement in the bins. One of the more popular items that cannot be put in the home bins at this time is glass. That will still have to be dropped off at one of the designated sites around town.

"It's just good business," says Holbert. "Iinstead of burying this stuff in the landfill where it has lose-lose, no value at all, we're bringing it into the economy where like I said, new jobs, new materials going into factories and people really like to recycle."

The entire list of what can and cannot be recycled in the new bins is available at the City of Albuquerque website.