Abington Township’s Refuse & Recycling Superintendent recently shared a message advising residents to stop placing trash items in paper recycling bins.

From the message:

We have been experiencing a concerning amount of trash in our paper recycling collected from our curbside collection program. When trash, which is observed by a driver in the recycling truck using an in-truck camera system, is dumped into the recycling truck, its contents are contaminated and will not be accepted by our Recycling Center. The truckload can either be dumped as trash with the Township being charged a premium and none of the material being recycled or the entire truck must be dumped at our Public Works Yard and hand sorted by our Public Works staff to remove the trash. Contamination of our recycling vehicles impacts our entire Refuse operation due to additional staff time and reduced time the vehicle is serving the public or additional fees from disposal and reduced revenue from the inability to recycle the items.

Having separate cans for trash, paper, and other recyclable materials is the basis for the Township’s award-winning PAYT “Pay As You Throw” program. The PAYT program allows residents to pay only for the amount of trash they generate based on the size of their can. The success of this program has kept our refuse fee the same over the past nine years for all households, while some of our surrounding municipalities’ refuse fees have more than doubled. We cannot maintain our PAYT program without active participation from our residents.

There should NEVER be plastic bags, wood, yard waste, food waste, soiled diapers, car fenders, medical waste or any garbage placed in the gray paper recycling can. Doing so is putting our employees at risk, so PLEASE, remember to ONLY place paper and cardboard in the gray cart. If you have any questions about recycling, please do not hesitate to contact our office at 267-536-1034. We thank you for your understanding and cooperation…and please pass the word along to your neighbors so we can reach as many households as possible.

For more on the Township’s recycling division, you can click here.

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