What Are The New Recycling Rules?

OK, my subject in question is the recycling program. The buzz around town is you don't have to separate anything anymore. Is that true? I went to the town website and it looks like the same info that has always been there. Did you do a piece on it and I missed it or am I just misinformed? If it is true that we can put everything together, does that mean we don't have to tie up paper or can we make it that it just doesn't fly away while waiting to get picked up?

Here's the scoop:

Indeed, everything can be thrown in together – in either bin – and put that way curbside. R.I. Resource Recovery Corp. has new machines that do the sorting for us. For a few of us, it may be a tough habit to break (ok, I admit it, I'm still sorting ... ) and, in fact, you can keep sorting. The important thing to know is that you just don't have to anymore!

There's more. These new machines can take all sorts of plastics. I know, most of you are thinking, plastic is plastic. You're used to throwing all your plastic containers into the recycle bin, regardless of type. Well, truth be told, a lot of our plastics used to be unacceptable at RIRR and they were hand-picked out.

But, NOT ANY MORE! So, if you were one of those people who scrutinized every container to see what number was on it, give your eyes a break. The new machines take practically all comers (for a list of items still not recyclable, click here).

So our new marching orders are, "Toss Away!"

If you are worried about fly-away newspapers, weight them down with your other recycles, or place them in a paper sack.

East Greenwich does pretty well compared to other communities in the state, recycle-wise, the folks at Public Works tell us. Let's keep it up!

Have a question about something in East Greenwich that you want answered? Leave it as a comment here. Or send an email to elizabeth.mcnamara@patch.com