What extra stuff can we now recycle?
Starting this week, plastic buckets, coolers, dish drainers, laundry baskets and a host of other "rigid plastic" products are being accepted for the first time in the city of Tucson's recycling program.
Suburban Waste Management Inc. customers in the Tucson area also are now allowed to start placing such items in their recycling bins.
Why is this change happening now?
The fast-growing Chinese economy is providing a recycling market for rigid plastic - a market that didn't exist three years ago.
Also, Waste Management has retooled its Recycle America plant on Tucson's northwest side so it can easily accept these items. The plant added metal chutes known as picking stations where the plastics are put.
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What else will we be able to recycle soon?
There are still types of plastic products that the expanded Tucson and Waste Management programs won't accept, including yogurt containers.
But a new recycling plant is now scheduled to be built in less than two years that will accept far more items than the system currently takes - including dairy tubs, water hoses and even PVC pipe.
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