News release
Earth Day is Tuesday, April 22, 2008
Taking the guesswork out of recycling
Beginning April 22, Earth Day, SF recycling companies will accept
plastic cups, containers, and toys in blue carts
No Styrofoam, film plastic or plastic bags
SAN FRANCISCO: The days of looking for the chasing arrows symbol on the
bottom of plastic cups and containers and trying to remember which
numbers are OK to recycle are about to end.
Effective Tuesday, April 22, 2008 (Earth Day) the curbside recycling
program will expand to include all "rigid" (stiff) plastics.
Residents and businesses will be encouraged to recycle all plastic tubs
and lids, yogurt and clamshell containers (clean, without food or
liquids), cups, buckets, plant containers, and other non-film plastics.
As long as an item is made only of rigid plastic – not a plastic bag or
other film plastic – it can go into in the blue recycling cart.
Plastic toys will be accepted as long as they have no metal parts,
batteries, circuit boards or wiring.
Plastic film of any kind, such as plastic bags and plastic wrap, will
not be accepted. Styrofoam will not be accepted.
Sunset Scavenger Co. and Golden Gate Disposal & Recycling Co.
collect bottles, cans, paper, (and now rigid plastics) that residents
and businesses place together in blue recycling carts and deliver the
co-mingled materials to Recycle Central, the modern sorting plant
operated by SF Recycling, Inc. on Pier 96.
Upgrading the blue cart program to accept more plastics is part of
ongoing efforts by the city’s recycling companies to help San Francisco
divert 75 percent of resources away from landfill disposal by 2010 and
to help achieve what the City calls "zero waste" by 2020.
By placing more rigid plastics in the blue cart, residents and
businesses will help provide additional opportunities for recycling
workers to recover plastic items that can be recycled and made into new
products. In this way the efforts of residents, businesses, and
recycling sorters combine to reduce landfill disposal.
Unfortunately, plastics are pervasive in our society and recycling
markets do not exist for all types of plastic. Many items made from
plastic (hair clips, pens, lipstick tubes, straws, etc.) are so small
they either fall through recycling equipment or cannot be picked up by
sorters wearing protective gloves.
Also, manufacturing facilities using recycled plastic do not accept all
types, grades, and colors of plastic. Therefore, not all plastics tossed
in the blue cart will be recycled. But most of them will.
Plastic bags and other film plastics get tangled in recycling equipment,
including conveyer belts, and plastic bags that get past recycling
equipment contaminate paper bales. So, please, never put plastic bags or
other film-based plastics in the blue cart.
Sunset, Golden Gate, and SF Recycling work closely with the City
agencies including the Department of the Environment, the Department of
Public Works, and the City Administrator’s Office to design and
implement programs that make recycling easy and convenient for residents
and businesses.
Toys with metal parts or wiring and other electronic products are not
accepted in the curbside recycling program. Please visit www.SFRecycling.com for
information about recycling electronic and toxic products.
Sunset, Golden Gate and SF Recycling are based in San Francisco and 100
percent employee-owned companies.
To view a slide show or a brief video showing how bottles, cans, paper,
and rigid plastics are separated at Recycle Central, go to www.SFRecycling.com
Media contact: Robert Reed
Public Relations Manager
Sunset Scavenger Co.
cell: (415) 606-9183
rreed@sfrecycling.com