Recycling Bins

Baltimore will order thousands more recycling bins and will make them available in three weeks, officials in Mayor Sheila Dixon's administration said yesterday. Thousands of people stood in line for hours over the weekend to buy the recycling bins, which can be used for the city's new single-stream recycling program. The city quickly ran out of its 10,000-bin supply. "This was actually a good thing," Dixon said yesterday. "It was a problem that was a good problem. I know some people were frustrated about the long lines, but what I heard is that because we're going to single-stream recycling, people have now decided to recycle."

Well, that worked out well, didn't it? I'm talking about those precious yellow recycling bins, which are probably selling on eBay for triple or quadruple their price even as we speak. Those now worth-their-weight-in-gold containers that thousands lined up to buy at this weekend's "Bin Kick-Off" events at several city schools, only to be turned away empty-handed when the city ran out of them. The yellow bins are for next year's switch to single-stream recycling. Come Jan. 8, you can dump all your fine recyclables - paper, plastic, bottles, cans - in a single container, which will be picked up twice a month.

Vernon Burton is one of the few tenants in his Glen Burnie apartment complex who make the trip to a nearby convenience center once in a while to recycle his stash of glass containers and cans."

Edward J. Gossett Jr. is on a mission to make us all more environmentally correct. He's selling T-shirts made partly from recycled plastic, unbleached paper towels and cleaning liquids that won't pollute.Operation Green Co. in Westminster is stocked and ready to supply the region's demand for products made from recycled materials."I'm now being referred to as 'Hey, you're the recycling guy,' " said Mr. Gossett, 24, who opened the business a month ago in a former plumbing company office on Pennsylvania Avenue near Vince's Seafood.

Wednesday's decision by the county commissioners to take the red recycling bins from 10 locations around the county came on the heels of a request by the Hampstead council to remove that town's bin.Hampstead council members voted unanimously Tuesday night to ask the county to remove their recycling bin within 15 days. The bin, on the post office parking lot, is used by out-of-town residents as a dump, they said.County officials said they decided to remove all of the bins because up to 40 percent of their contents were nonrecyclable.

Man accused of stealing video camera SaturdayA 27-year-old Westminster man has been accused of stealing an $800 video camera from a father and son who were fishing at the Morgan Run Natural Environmental area in Sykesville, a Department of Natural Resources spokesman said.The father and son anglers had set the camera down Saturday and someone walked up and took it, the spokesman said.A ranger with the state Forest and Park Service arrested the man after a search of his home Sunday afternoon.

The town of Manchester's recycling rate was 18.8 percent in November, says Councilwoman Kathryn L. Riley.In November, the town sent 79.47 tons of trash to the county landfill. During that month, the town recycled 18.45 tons of other trash, she said, saving $738 in tipping fees.The figures are for materials recycled at the curbside only, she said.Mrs. Riley said the amount of garbage the town sent to the landfill in November 1993 was 16.35 tons less than it dumped during November 1992.Asked what caused the decline, Mrs. Riley said, "I want to think it's the recycling bins."

Carroll's mayors need to know whether the county commissioners want to use recycling bins in the towns in the future, Westminster Mayor W. Benjamin Brown said at the quarterly mayors' meeting yesterday at the County Office Building.In mid-March, without consulting the mayors, the commissioners decided to remove 14 red recycling bins because people were tossing garbage into them.Some mayors complained about the removal, saying the 1-ton bins are needed and not all are being used improperly.

It is unfortunate that a few thoughtless souls decided to dump large amounts of garbage and refuse in Carroll County's recycling bins. Since this trash "contaminates" the recyclable glass, metal and paper, Phoenix Recycling has been regularly rejecting deliveries. The contents of these bins had to be dumped in the landfill. To solve this problem, the commissioners are removing 14 of these large bins from locations around the county.The absence of these receptacles may make it more difficult for some people to recycle their newspapers, glass bottles, plastic and aluminum cans, but the commissioners had little choice.

The Carroll County Commissioners are considering returning for one day a week the recycling bins they had county workers remove from local municipalities March 12.Eugene Curfman, the county comptroller, suggested to the commissioners yesterday that the county could place containers at various sites in the county one day each week and have the operation supervised to prevent people from throwing nonrecyclable trash in the bins."

Terry Shepard lives just west of Baltimore's Inner Harbor, where he has "a tiny mystery." Each day, for more than a week, he emptied "an inch or more" of rain water from his recycling bins. "Yet every day the paper would report much smaller amounts." Why? Probably because our "24-hour" rain data are actually midnight-to-5 p.m. totals. Thanks to your note, I've asked for new wording.

With less than a week until final budget votes, no consensus has emerged among Howard County Council members on whether to make changes in County Executive Ken Ulman's $1.4 billion budget. During another two-hour discussion late Wednesday, only Council Chairman Courtney Watson, an Ellicott City Democrat, and Fulton Republican Greg Fox appeared interested in making cuts, though west Columbia Democrat Mary Kay Sigaty said she'd consider cutting a $400,000 wellness program for county employees.

One month into a new single-stream recycling program, Baltimore experienced a modest gain in the amount of material being collected and hopes to see steady growth into this year, public works officials said yesterday. Single-stream recycling, which started Jan. 8 in Baltimore, lets residents place all recyclable material into one bin to be collected on the same day. Under the old system, the city picked up paper and other types of recyclables on alternating weeks. Valentina Ukwuoma, head of the solid waste bureau of the Department of Public Works, said the city collected 50 tons more recyclable material in January than it did in January 2007 - a roughly 4.5 percent increase.

Additional single-stream recycling bins are available from the Baltimore Department of Public Works at the city's yard at 111 Kane St., across from Patterson High School. The yellow bins will be available from 9 a.m. to 2 p.m. Monday through Friday. The 18-gallon bins cost $5; the 25-gallon bins are $6. City officials ordered 10,000 bins last month but ran out on the first distribution day. An additional 20,000 bins were ordered. Anne Arundel : Harmans Pickup hits tree; driver is killed A Hanover man was killed when he lost control of his pickup truck and slammed into a tree in Harmans, Anne Arundel County police said yesterday.

Baltimore will order thousands more recycling bins and will make them available in three weeks, officials in Mayor Sheila Dixon's administration said yesterday. Thousands of people stood in line for hours over the weekend to buy the recycling bins, which can be used for the city's new single-stream recycling program. The city quickly ran out of its 10,000-bin supply. "This was actually a good thing," Dixon said yesterday. "It was a problem that was a good problem. I know some people were frustrated about the long lines, but what I heard is that because we're going to single-stream recycling, people have now decided to recycle."

Well, that worked out well, didn't it? I'm talking about those precious yellow recycling bins, which are probably selling on eBay for triple or quadruple their price even as we speak. Those now worth-their-weight-in-gold containers that thousands lined up to buy at this weekend's "Bin Kick-Off" events at several city schools, only to be turned away empty-handed when the city ran out of them. The yellow bins are for next year's switch to single-stream recycling. Come Jan. 8, you can dump all your fine recyclables - paper, plastic, bottles, cans - in a single container, which will be picked up twice a month.

Newspapers can mingle with metal, glossy magazines with plastic, mail with glass. And condominiums can finally recycle. This sudden marriage of all things plastic and paper, metal and glass, begins Jan. 8 with the city's revamped and streamlined recycling program. Yesterday, Mayor Sheila Dixon announced this weekend's kickoff of single-stream recycling with the sale of bright yellow recycling bins at four city locations tomorrow from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m., and one on Sunday. "Citizens no longer need to sort their recycling," said Dixon.

RECYCLING helps a community conserve resources, especially increasingly scarce landfill space. But recycling simply won't work without the full cooperation of a community and its government. That was evident in Baltimore's decision earlier this year to cancel residential curbside recycling because of poor participation and taxpayer expense. It was also obvious in the subsequent reversal of that decision, based on redoubling the public commitment to the program. Programs that don't effectively recycle paper, glass, plastic and metals waste resources and money instead of saving them.

You can do it in Seattle, Chicago and Athens, Ga. But on the streets of downtown Baltimore, don't look for recycling bins to take that empty plastic water bottle or already-read newspaper off your hands. There aren't any. As a growing number of cities give pedestrians the same recycling options that many residents have, Baltimore has opted out. City officials say one deterrent is cost: Baltimore nearly trashed its residential curbside recycling program this year for financial reasons.

You can do it in Seattle, Chicago and Athens, Ga. But on the streets of downtown Baltimore, don't look for recycling bins to take that empty plastic water bottle or already-read newspaper off your hands. There aren't any. As a growing number of cities give pedestrians the same recycling options that many residents have, Baltimore has opted out. City officials say one deterrent is cost: Baltimore nearly trashed its residential curbside recycling program this year for financial reasons.