by Steven Felschundneff steven@claremont-courier.com

The City of Claremont will resume its recycling program starting Monday after suspending it for several weeks because its refuse contractor, Waste Management, closed its recycling facility.

“The city is pleased to announce that recycling collection will resume on Monday May 4, 2020. The city’s contract recycling facility will begin a phased reopening with new social distancing protocols in place. Your sanitation driver will once again collect trash, recycling and green waste in three separate loads,” the city said in a statement.

Because some people may have been mixing trash and recycling during the period when the the recycling program was on hiatus, the city recognizes there may be some contamination during the first week back to full service. Waste Management will sort and process the mixed recycling this first week. After that, individual customers will have to go back to seperating trash from recyclable materials. Additionally, all recyclables must be clean and dry, with no food residue.

As a reminder the following items are recyclable in Claremont: plastic jugs, bottles, and jars with #1 and #2 lables only; glass bottles and jars; paper, paper boxes, and cardboard; cans including soup and beverage cans; aluminum containers.

The city of Claremont continues to contract with Waste Management for recyclable processing and has not changed recycling companies. The city council recently approved a contract with Grand Central Recycling & Transfer Station for hauling services, which is focused on transferring solid waste from the city yard’s transfer station to the landfill for disposal and does not include any recyclable material processing. 

“We would like to thank all of our customers for your patience and we look forward to continuing to serve you,” the statement read.