new supercans and recycling bins coming

Click on the link to read the entire post by Washington Post's Mike DeBonis:

District of DeBonis

New recycling and trash bins coming to D.C. households

• BY MIKE DEBONIS

• November 25 at 1:05 pm

The city’s recycling bins are getting bigger: The old 32-gallon cans (left) will be replaced next year with new 48-gallon and 64-gallon cans

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Households that receive once-a-week trash pickup will get a new 96-gallon “Supercan” — same size as the old trash bins — plus a new 64-gallon recycling bin — twice the size of current bins.  In neighborhoods receiving twice-a-week trash pickup, mostly located in denser center-city areas, households will get new 32-gallon trash cans plus new, bigger 48-gallon recycling bins to handle those once-a-week pickups.
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The old cans will be collected and recycled, said Bill Howland, director of the D.C. Department of Public Works.  But he said households are free to keep their old cans if they wish.   The new cans will be made from 40 percent recycled plastic, and the recycling bins for the first time will have a list of accepted materials stamped on them.

Howland said the oldest cans are now more than 12 years old, and in some cases vermin have gnawed through them, making them a sanitation risk.  And he said he expects larger bins to improve the city’s recycling performance.  Recycling collections have increased from 20 percent of the total amount hauled by the city in 2006, Howland said, to 27 percent of the total hauled today.  That’s still well short of a 45 percent goal set by District law in 1988.
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