Too much cardboard winding up in the trash piles of North Andover, Mass., homes has prompted town officials to penalize those who try to bypass the town’s curbside recycling program by setting out recyclable materials with their garbage, reports the Boston Globe.
As of the first of the year, on trash day any “visible recyclables” will be left on the street next to the emptied garbage cans of homeowners.
Tina Klein, chairwoman of the town’s Solid Waste Advisory Committee, tells the Globe that the policy is the town’s toughest effort ever to bolster recycling and reduce the cost of trash disposal.
Klein tells the paper she expects the new rule will easily double the amount of cardboard collected for recycling, saving the town an estimated $85,000 annually.
To the knowledge of Greg Cooper, head of the recycling program at the Massachusetts Department of Environmental Protection, no other community has taken such drastic measures to enforce recycling, according to the paper.
“Next to newsprint, cardboard is also one of the easiest items to recycle,” Klein tells the paper. “It’s also a fast way to lower our regular trash disposal costs because it is so heavy.”
However, some express concern that the mandatory program, which requires homeowners to knock down cardboard boxes, might put an excessive burden on the elderly and handicapped, according to the Globe.