The same week Murray鈥檚 curbside recycling customers are using the service to recycle loads of wrapping paper and gift boxes, the city鈥檚 recycling program is reaching a new milestone of collecting 100 tons in a single year. Murray Sanitation Manager Ron Allbritten reminded recycling customers that with the holiday schedule, they need to put their recycling on the curb. That also goes for residents that don鈥檛 subscribe to the service but have their garbage picked up on Wednesdays. The holidays will also delay trash pickup by one day for Thursday and Friday customers, he said.
Murray residents are likely to have a lot of Christmas-related trash to put on the curb. Allbritten said a lot of recycling customers remember gift-packaging waste, but they should keep in mind just how much else can also be kept out of the landfill if they pay attention to what they鈥檙e throwing out.
鈥淎ll that Christmas paper is prime recycling material,鈥� Allbritten said. 鈥淵ou鈥檝e got your cardboard boxes and your wrapping paper, or maybe you didn’t have (gifts) in a box wrapped up and you used the paper gift bags. They’re all prime candidates for recycling. I think sometimes people get kind of locked into only thinking, 鈥業’m recycling, and I鈥檓 getting rid of all my paper.鈥� Well, don’t forget, your plastic bottles can go in there, and so can your tin cans from the green beans or the peas you got at the grocery store. Just rinse them out. Metal probably has the highest value of recyclables. (Don鈥檛 forget) soda cans and soda pop bottles. Those are recyclable too, so throw them in there. Some people have a mixture of it all, while others kind of focus on one thing, but they could expand their horizons and realize there’s more they could recycle than what they’re actually doing now.鈥�