While Baltimore County does not intend to purchase containers for residents, officials are considering several plans to make bins affordable and easily available.
"Recycling helps us avoid substantial costs and we know a lot more is going out as trash that could be recycled," Reighart said.
Baltimore County residents currently rely on one trash collection a week and alternate weekly between paper and bottles, an effort that began about 16 years ago. Many have complained about the difficulty in keeping track of the recycling schedule and storing recyclable items for more than two weeks should the regular collection day fall on a holiday, officials said.
A recent survey of 223 randomly chosen residents showed nearly 70 percent would prefer weekly pick-up of commingled items, officials said.
"This will make it more convenient for residents," Reighart said.
Increased participation will also save county landfill space and decrease the amount of trash that is shipped elsewhere for disposal, said Mary B. Roper, bureau chief of solid waste management.
"Recycling is cheaper and more reliable than other options," she said.
Recycling conserves space at the Eastern Sanitary Landfill in White Marsh, which opened in 1982 and has reached about half of its operational capacity. Haulers also take trash to Baltimore City's waste-to-energy plant and to out-of-state landfills, at a cost that is escalating sharply, Roper said. Contracts with the city and outlying landfills expire within the next two years and will have to be renegotiated, she said.
While many residents place recyclables in plastic grocery bags for curbside collection, county officials will be asking them to "de-bag." Separating equipment used for single-stream cannot handle the bags.
The start-up date is tentatively set for Feb. 1, but could change, depending on when the county finds a vendor to accept the commingled items. The county's recycling facility in Cockeysville is not yet designed to handle a single-stream operation and officials have yet to determine whether they will purchase the necessary equipment.
