What Does the Tag On My Cart Mean?

In an effort to clean up our recycling stream, Environmental Services staff are inspecting recycling carts for contamination of non-recyclable items and other recycling issues. By giving our residents personalized feedback on how to recycle correctly, we hope to reduce the amount of contamination and discover recycling trends. Identifying the misconceptions about recycling our county struggles with, will allow our department to provide tailored education materials to residents.

Tagging carts will not affect recycling collection schedule, and does not indicate that your recycling will not be collected. Tagged carts will still be serviced on their regular collection day unless the severity of the issue obstructs the cart from being able to be collected.

Why Would I be Tagged?

We are inspecting and tagging carts because the following contaminant or issue was observed: 

  1. Bagged Recycling; Plastic bags and films get tangled in the recycling equipment at the sorting facility. Please pour recycling loosely into your cart and throw the bag away. 
  2. Excessive Cardboard; While cardboard is recyclable, the blue recycling bin isn't designed to fit large bulky pieces, cardboard needs to be broken down or hauled to Miller Scrap or Redbox; Matejka Recycling at no cost. 
  3. Overfull; If a cart is overfilled with recyclables and the lid does not complete close, the automated collection arm cannot work properly. Material may spill out or your cart may not be picked up. 
  4. Recyclables Outside of Cart; Drivers are no longer permitted to leave their vehicle to pick up recycling. With the automated collection system, anything outside of the cart does not get collected. 
  5. Non-Recyclable Material; A non-recyclable material was seen in your cart. The circled item on the tag is not recyclable through the curbside program and should be placed in the trash. 


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