Five - Recycling Center

Recycling is a fine thing to do. However, as your city continually tries to maximize its profits, it is getting more and more time consuming to adhere to the rules set forth by your city.

For the city of Minneapolis to pick up your recycling nowadays you have to be a determined one. Costs of processing recyclables are constantly rising and the driver is the same person that picks up your recyclables and placing them in separate containers, so you need to adhere to the rules completely if you want your stuff picked up . For example, if you don't use paper bags you will need to use your own properly labeled bins (see pictures). In order to get the right stickers, you must call up the City of Minneapolis Solid Waste and Recycling Department and order them. If you are an avid newspaper reader or have just moved in you will have to tie your stuff in twine in order for it to be acceptable.

According to the Solid Waste and Recycling site, Minneapolis began its recycling program in 1982, serving roughly 32,000 households, picking up over 1,000 tons of clear glass, used motor oil and batteries, newspapers and aluminum cans once a month. In 1988, separate collection of yard waste began for composting purposes and in 1993 the city delivered over 250 composters to those eager households interesting in composting.

The city contracted out its recycling services initially with Minneapolis Refuse, Inc taking over in 1989. In 2005, BFI took over the contract for processing and marketing the city's recyclables from BFO. In 2003, the city approved the collection of school food waste to be used as compost throughout the city.

The cost to the user to recycle has varied over the years. In 1989, the cost to a user was $12/month/unit going up to $22.25/month/unit in 2005 with a $7 recycling credit/month/unit.

 If you improperly recycle something, the city will not take it from you and will instead leave a yellow tag with instruction on how to properly recycle. Even with this, however, it is confusing to know what can and cannot be recycled. The Solid Waste and Recycling Department has a What to Do List web page that's quite informative and list pretty much anything you could possibly come across.  If you have yard waste there the City of Minneapolis has a web site detailing how to properly dispose of your waste. If you have large items such as appliances, first, see if someone you know could use it, otherwise, check out this web page for details on how to properly dispose of the items.

Happy Recycling!