Lynn trash program promotes recycling

LYNN – Familiarizing residents in more than 27,000 local households with recycling tips is a key part of making the city?s plan to start automated trash collection this fall a success, said Public Works Commissioner Andrew Hall.Beginning in November, garbage collector Waste Management Inc. will send out trucks equipped with large mechanical arms to scoop up trash and recyclables from curbs. But before the first collection begins, the company and city officials will launch a two month-long education effort centered around the sturdy plastic bins Wheelabrator will hand out to every local household.?It will be a bit of a learning experience for residents,” Hall said.Waste Management workers will begin handing out the bins – or carts as the company calls them – to households in October. Equipped with lids and wheels, the bins also have a computer chip installed in them with an address matching the address of the assigned household.Residents will receive a flyer in the mail in early September explaining automated trash collection, when the bins will be delivered and how to use them, said Waste Management services manager James Nocella.?When we start the distribution of the carts, we?ll put out a more comprehensive flyer,” he said.Automated collection means residents must say goodbye to a varied collection of plastic and metal barrels, many of them dinged, dented and pocked with holes that invite rats into them to savage trash bags.Nocella said Waste Management plans to set up collection points in the city where residents can drop off barrels. The new bins include a 64-gallon trash container roughly equal in size to one and a half standard trash barrels.The recycling bins are larger than the trash bins with an eye toward encouraging residents to separate bottles, paper and cans from their garbage and toss the empty containers into the recycling bin.?The challenge is going to be recycling – people are going to have to recycle more,” said Hall.Encouraging them to do that may involve educating local schoolchildren to recycle and take their automated trash tips home to parents, said Hall and Ward 3 City Councilor Darren Cyr.?Younger people can take the lead on this,” Hall said.Cyr thinks residents will recycle and even come to appreciate benefits gained from separating trash and recyclables. He said his family of four has recycled for about two years and puts out, on average, a single trash barrel on collection days.?It comes down to common sense,” he said.Waste Management will continue trash and recycling collection on days currently scheduled in neighborhoods across the city. One key lesson residents living in single-family homes and small multi-unit buildings will have to learn involves placing bins on the correct spot at the curb so that the Waste Management driver can hoist the bins using the truck-mounted mechanical arm.Nocella said company employees will familiarize residents with correct placement once the four week-long bin distribution effort begins.Cyr said residents are already getting a leg up in the battle against garbage-gobbling rats by putting trash bags in secure barrels and slapping a lid on top of the container.?We?re starting to get a handle on the rodent problem,” he said.