BACK MOUNTAIN, Pa. — Curbside trash and recycling pick-up is different than it used to be in the Back Mountain of Luzerne County. For one thing, it's more colorful than it was before, with three different bins for recyclables.
"The red is for the plastic–the commingled plastic, aluminum, and steel," explained Tom Keiper, executive director of the Dallas Area Municipal Authority (DAMA). "Yellow is for glass, and the green or blue is for fiber paper."
Keiper says by law, the authority has to recycle for folks in Dallas, Dallas Township, and Kingston Township.
A multi-stream system saves the authority more money. Since 2018, when the market changed for recyclables, Keiper says it's been losing money.
"We went from receiving $15 a ton for all recyclables to paying $100 a ton to get rid of recycles versus $55 a ton to put trash in a landfill," he explained.
But with this system, he says the recyclables are marketable again, and the cost won't have to go back to the taxpayer.
"When you divide that by 8,000 customers, that's a lot of money that we don't have to raise rates to cover. So it is more work for people. And it is a learning curve. But there's a sound reason financial reason to do it. It's more work for our people," Keiper said.
DAMA officials tell Newswatch 16 that they understand that there will be a learning curve with any change. But things that have not changed are that pizza boxes are not recyclable, and all cardboard boxes have to be broken down.
"If a box is not broken down, it takes up way too much room," Keiper said.
So those get left behind, along with pizza boxes, which are likely contaminated with grease and cannot be recycled.
"I can't have my people out there deciding if it's got grease or not on every piece. It's just too dangerous to be on the street. I don't want to be on the street no longer than he has to be," added Keiper.
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