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ith Old Man Winter already blasting us with freezing and below-
freezing temperatures, we know that snow is on its way. Schools
have begun to receive their salt and sand deliveries and we
understand that you may be tempted to use your recycling bins for salt and
sand. After all, the bins are the perfect size and the dollies make life so much
easier!
However, do not to use your recycling bins and dollies for this purpose. One
reason is that recycling bins are for recycling only. It’s just that simple.
Montgomery County mandates that our schools recycle all mixed paper and
commingled items. We must recycle—it’s not optional. SERT has provided
each school with an appropriate number of recycling bins, so using recycling
bins for other purposes means that you will not have adequate bins for your
school’s recycling. The second reason is that the recycling bins are not made
to handle the weight of material that’s heavier than paper and plastic. They
will crack after they’ve been frozen and they will bend or break when filled
with extremely heavy items. The wheels on the dollies are not made to
withstand the weight of salt and sand so they will buckle and break, and
replacing them is quite expensive.
Remember that your recycling bins
The other winter weather-related issue has to do with the snow itself. When should never be used for
your parking lots get plowed, please make sure that the snow doesn’t get anything other than recycling!
piled up around the recycling dumpsters. It is vitally important that you keep
a clean path around both the mixed paper and commingled items dumpsters
to ensure that our recycling hauler can service them on your school’s
Finally, please remember to keep
scheduled pick up day. (Visit our website to see the systemwide pick up
your dumpsters locked at all times.
schedule.)
This is important because if one
dumpster is contaminated with trash,
and that trash goes into the hauler’s
truck, MCPS could lost up to five tons
of recycled material from approxi-
mately 30 schools. Please don’t let
your dumpster be the reason we all
lose!

Always keep the area around
your dumpsters clear so the hauler
can service them on safely and
on schedule.

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JANUARY 2017