Dalton City Recycling in 2021 Weighs as Much as 590 Hippos
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If you live in the City of Dalton, you are used to setting out your blue bin on recycling pickup day and coming home to it empty. All of our households recycling adds up to some big numbers by the end of the year.
The blue bins are picked up once a week by the curbside recycling team. They sort and separate each item in the blue bins by hand and deposit into various compartments in the collection truck. The drivers handle more than 4,000 blue bins each week. It is through their work that Dalton was able to collect enough recyclables to weigh the approximate amount of 590 hippos.
In 2021, the City of Dalton Public Works Department collected 1,946,800 pounds of recyclables as part of their Curbside Recycling Program. Little by little, bottle by bottle, Dalton residents helped keep waste out of the landfill and created new products through recycling. Their combined efforts saved 1,622 cubic yards of landfill space which aids in extending the life of the Old Dixie Highway landfill in Whitfield County. Each cubic yard is about the size of your home dishwasher.
8.33% of Dalton’s waste was diverted to recycling to be turned into new books, carpet, cereal boxes and more. If only paper had been collected, the 973.40 tons would save 16,547 trees in 2021.
When you put something in your blue bin to be recycled instead of throwing it away it is sent to manufacturers that use recycled material to make their products. This helps conserve our natural resources and can save energy in production.
The curbside recycling program began in 1991 and continues today thanks to the City of Dalton Public Works Department. The program is entirely free for residents of Dalton. To receive a blue bin for recycling pickup, call public works at (706) 278-7077. You may request up to three recycling bins for free depending on the size of your household.
Inside the blue bins, multiple types of items can be recycled. Residents can recycle paper, cardboard, aluminum, bi-metal cans and plastic jugs and bottles. It is fine to leave the labels and lids on containers inside the bin, but there are some important rules to make sure that your item ends up at the recycling center.
Items that cannot be accepted for recycling include any soiled items or waxed paper and cardboard. Make sure that any materials put into your recycling bin are clean and contain no food residue. When the materials are mixed together for the process of recycling, food waste from one container can contaminate the other materials and cause problems such as mold or bacteria as they are stored before recycling.
The process of recycling paper includes mixing the paper in a big tub of water and chemicals to turn the paper into slurry. The oil and fat from food residue won’t mix with the water. It instead mixes with the slurry used to form new paper. This makes the paper extremely low quality and, therefore, unusable.
To make the process easier, you do not have to separate your recycling into different bins before it is picked up, but there are good and bad ways to pack your bin. If you only have one bin, place all of the paper on the bottom and containers on top. Avoid littering your street by overloading the bin which can be helped by crushing plastic and aluminum containers and breaking down or flattening boxes.