Petersburg has started the roll-out of new blue recycling carts.
Public works director Karl Hagerman says public works staff started the distribution of the 1,100 blue carts Monday. “We lucked out and got some really nice weather for this week, so I think it’s gonna go really well,” Hagerman said.
Public works laborer Mike Birch distributes the new carts on Lumber Street Monday. (Photo courtesy of Matt Lichtenstein)
The 96-gallon blue containers will be replacing the blue plastic bags as the borough takes over collection from a private company. Customers are getting their carts on the day they’ve been setting out their recycling. Hagerman said the borough still wants people to use blue plastic bags for one more week.
“Rugers Trucking is still collecting those bags,” Hagerman explained. “So we didn’t want to confuse the customers by putting all the carts out in the beginning of the week and then having them not know exactly if they should use them this week or wait til next week. So we’re putting them out day by day, throughout the week and all the customers should know to please use the blue bags this week and then next week will be the first week where they can roll their cart to the curb and have that collected by the borough.”
Because of the Martin Luther King holiday next Monday, borough collection will start next Tuesday, January 19th. There’s a packet of information included in each cart, with guidelines for materials that should be recycled, a weatherproof sticker, an information sheet and a collection calendar for customers.
“Hopefully the calendar that we put in there will help people quite a bit,” said Hagerman. “It’s fairly simple. It’s a change though. And so folks hopefully will look at the information and work it into their routines pretty quickly.”
Customers with any questions can call public works at 772-4430.
