The New Recycling Bins (ahem…Carts)

I know: they’re huge. And they’re plastic. And they don’t exactly complement any particular style of home décor except, perhaps, “LEGO Chic.” Plus, they take up a lot of space, and they can be difficult to situate if you don’t have a spacious driveway or more than ten feet separating your house from the one next door. 

But they’re going to be so good for the environment. And for the workers who’ve been hefting hundreds of bins each day for the past six years. And once you get over their size, color, and unnatural appearance, you may find that they have many benefits for you, too. 

Challenges and Opportunities

Yes, these new containers present some challenges. But many of those challenges are just the flip side of an opportunity. Take a look. 

CHALLENGE	OPPORTUNITY
These bins—I mean carts—are huge.	A single recycling cart holds more than three times the material that can fit in one of the small blue bins. This means you won't have to deal with your recycling every week. You only need to bring the cart to the curb when it's full.
I'm having a hard time finding space for my bin (I mean cart).​	I know. Locating the cart can be a challenge if you don't have a driveway or space along the side or front of your building. I've seen people in my neighborhood who have no front or side yards place the cart in front of their homes on the sidewalk. If there is absolutely nowhere else to put them, this is okay. You'll just want to position the carts so that there is room for people to pass on the sidewalk.
Thanks for the suggestion, but I'm still having a hard time finding space for my bin, errr...cart.	Talk to your neighbors. This could be a good chance to see if you can work together to create a communal space between your buildings, or if you can use a section of someone else's driveway in return for being the person to place the carts at the curb when necessary.
The bright blue plastic carts are ugly, and I don't like the way they make my home, street, and neighborhood look.	The bright blue carts with the message "Portland Recycles" on the side communicate clearly to residents and visitors alike that Portland cares about the environment and that we are taking action to increase our recycling efforts and reduce waste. (Side benefit: if you have kids, your recycling bin finally looks like the bin in their Playmobil set.)
The lid is awkward to open and close.	Because the carts have lids, we won't have all that fugitive recycling blowing around the city, clogging up our drains, and getting into trees and into the bay. A Muskie professor did a study back in 2015 and determined that we were losing a ton—that's a literal ton, as in 2000 lbs—of recycling each week when materials fell/blew out of the uncovered bins. So yes, the lid is a bit clunky, but it's doing a very important job.

But Wait...There's More

A few other benefits of the new carts include:

• Less back pain for Department of Public Works (DPW) workers: As stated on the city's recycling page, collecting the small blue bins "requires workers to perform thousands of bending, twisting, and lifting motions throughout the day, all of which introduce the possibility of injury." The new carts are lifted into the recycling trucks by a tilt-arm, helping to protect workers and cut down on medical costs to the city. 
  
  
• Faster route completion: With the smaller bins, pretty much every household put out at least one blue bin every week. With the new, larger carts, recycling won't need to be collected at every home every week. This has the potential to make the collection routes go faster, freeing up DPW employees for other tasks and decreasing overtime. 

Finally: A Few Options

There's some versatility here for multi-unit buildings, and landlords (or condo association members) can talk to DPW to find the bin combination that best suits their needs.

​There are 64-gallon bins and 96-gallon bins available at present. Single family homes will get one 64-gallon bin. Buildings of up to 4 units will get one 64-gallon bin per unit. Buildings with more than 4 units will get two or more 96-gallon bins. Those are the "default settings" that I've heard, but you can work with DPW to determine which combination is right for your building. 

If you need another cart, or if you need a cart taken away, get in touch with DPW. They'll deliver or pick-up for you as quickly as they can. There are a lot of requests at the moment, so it may take a week or two, but they'll get there.

And if, in the end, you decide these new carts just aren't going to work for you, you can always retreat to the pre-curbside collection days and simply bring your personal recycling bin to the silver bullet containers as necessary. 
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There's more information about the city's recycling program on the Trash & Recycling page, so be sure to check it out.