Patti Singer

@PattiSingerRoc

Rochester will be delivering 96-gallon recycling containers to more houses

Big blue recycling containers are emptied every other week

Refuse collection remains every week

No more being blue with envy over your city neighbor’s 96-gallon recycling bin.

Yours is on the way.

Having declared its mixed-recycling pilot program a success, the city on Wednesday will start delivering the big covered rolling toters to more houses in various neighborhoods. Every two months, more will be delivered to another one-sixth of the city, said Norman Jones, commissioner of the Department of Environmental Services.

He said that by April, every residence is expected to have one and recyclables will be collected every other week. Refuse still is collected every week.

“We have to do this in a way that keeps everything flowing,” Jones said. “It’ll be phased in, in a scientific approach.”

Residents will receive information about their recycle schedule, and they also can look it up on the city’s website.

“We’re making sure people have the information they need to know what day to put their recyclables out,” Jones said.

►Read: Separating green from blue

Jones said the city spent $2.56 million on new vehicles, which was part of its normal vehicle replacement. He said it also spent $1.23 million on containers. He said the city ultimately would save money through alternate-week collections and keeping more items out of landfills. The mixed-recycling program eliminates the need to sort different types of material.

The pilot started in February 2015 in parts of the Browncroft, Marketview Heights, Park Avenue, Charlotte and the 19th Ward neighborhoods. The program involved single- and multifamily homes in affluent and poor neighborhoods.

The pilot showed that “all aspects of our community will recycle if you give them the right information and equipment,” Jones said. “Our best champions for recycling are our young people. We need to make sure we keep the focus on them.”

►Read: Results of the pilot program

Jones said residents who rolled their blue containers out on the wrong week or filled them with trash received “oops” notes. He said DES staff also went door to door to explain the program.

Jones, who has been promoting recycling since the 1980s, said the mixed recycling program is an evolution of the city’s first attempts decades ago at recycling just newspapers. “When you’re working on something that is part of a solution … you make a difference every day.”

►Read: Adventures of a recycler

The pilot program increased the amount of recyclables collected and sparked interest among residents who didn’t get a blue container.

The covered containers, eight times larger than the bins, also reduce litter. Some residents may have made fewer weekly trips to the curb with the green trash container. They also could alternate bins in winter, when space at the foot of the driveway is at a premium.

“What was in my trash was reduced immensely,” said Jones, whose street was part of the pilot program. “I have a big enough container and there’s more items that we can recycle. I can go in the winter time two weeks, maybe three weeks without taking the refuse container out.”

PSINGER@Gannett.com

Recycling schedule

Large recycling bins will be emptied every other week. City residents should get a schedule and can go to http://www.cityofrochester.gov/residentialrecycling/ and click the link next to the map of the city.