HAVERHILL — Are you planning a big Fourth of July backyard bash?
Wondering what you'll do with all those empty bottles and cans? Rather than place them in the trash, why not put them in a bin for recycling?
The timing is perfect.
Beginning July 5, the city will begin collecting recyclables at the curb from all homes in Haverhill. All residents can place their recyclables such as glass and plastic bottles, aluminum soda cans, metal and plastic food containers and cardboard and paper at the curb. Just make sure none of it is contaminated with food and that it is on the city's list of recyclable items.
To make it simple, you can lump all your recyclable items together in the same bucket, or any suitable container, such as a trash barrel no larger than 32 gallons.
For several years, the city has had curbside recycling of paper. A year ago, Haverhill started curbside recycling of all items in some neighborhoods. Residents not in those neighborhoods had to bring their non-paper recyclables to the city's highway garage on Primrose Street to recycle them.
Currently, about 40 percent of the city's homes have complete curbside recycling — and it will jump to 100 percent July 5.
For more than two years, Team Haverhill has been pushing the city to start single-stream, curbside recycling. Other groups, including Haverhill Brightside and the Haverhill Environmental League, joined in the push.
Remi Depommier, cochairman of Team Haverhill's recycling committee, said his group is elated at the news.
"It's really a community milestone," Depommier said. "Residents and city officials alike all played a role in this. It came from the ground up and the call was met by city officials."
Depommier said the city pays about $56 per ton of trash to Covanta Energy, which is around $1.3 million a year to dispose of the community's trash. He said the city reduced that bill by $400,000 annually by bumping up its current 10 percent recycling rate to the state average of 37 percent.
Almost a year ago, the city began single-stream, curbside recycling on Tuesday trash pickup days, which included the Acre neighborhood and the North Broadway area, and extended that in October to Wednesdays in Bradford.
"The company that picks that up from the curb had to reallocate one of their trucks for just the recycling," Depommier said.
Steve Clifford, the city's recycling coordinator, said residents will soon be mailed information as to what can or cannot be recycled, along with a pickup schedule and stickers to be placed on recycling containers. Additional stickers will be available at various locations, including City Hall and the Highway Department on Primrose Street.
Depommier said the brochures, stickers, postage for the mailings, as well as recycling containers in Haverhill schools, is made possible by a $30,000 grant from an anonymous donor.
Clifford said some residents were sent letters notifying them of a change in trash and recycling schedules that will go into effect the first week of July.
"Most of what people are throwing away now is recyclable," Clifford said. "We know that typically in the past we run about 10 percent recycling. With this new program we hope to increase that rate and lower our disposal cost of trash."
As an example of what the city hopes will happen, Clifford said that if a resident generates two barrels of trash today, through single-stream collection it would decrease that trash to one barrel and allow the resident to use the other barrel for recycling.
Single-stream pickup means residents can put all of their recyclables in one bin or container without having to separate materials.
"If every family would limit the amount of trash to no more than two barrels per family per week and recycle everything else, we will keep our city green and clean, and save tax dollars," the mayor noted on the city's website.
Earlier this year the mayor said he was unsure whether the city would be able to afford expanding the recycling program it began last summer.
He said the company that collects the city's trash, Capitol Waste, wanted an extra $250,000 to offer recycling to all households.
Then in March, the mayor said the company agreed to do it for no increase in exchange for a two-year extension of its contract that was to end in 2012. Haverhill pays Capitol Waste $1.5 million a year for trash and recycling collection. Under the new agreement, Capitol Waste will collect the city's trash and its recyclables through July 31, 2014, according to the mayor.
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Haverhill curbside recycling
Begins July 5
Use any container up to 32 gallons in size (apply a "Haverhill Recycles'' sticker)
Place the container(s) at the curb every other week on your trash day
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