The City of Tybee launched its own recycling program back in April. That’s after city leaders ended curbside pickup. City leaders say the response to the new program is surprising. There were many problems, including mixed up trash loads, with single-stream recycling. Now that this no longer exists, recyclables and trash getting mixed up has gone down. This is because people are using bins to sort their trash before it heads to the Department of Public Works.
When choosing to end curbside pickup, Councilman Monty Parks says it all came down to reducing contamination. “Single-stream containers would have trash, they would have grease, they would have food products, old chairs and clothing,” said Parks. Since April this hasn’t been much of an issue. “We have very clean product that we’re producing for people and our residents seem to love it.”
Parks says there are three bins on the island for people to take their recycling to. The idea is people will sort their recyclables at the bins. These bins are picked up three times a week and sorted one last time by the DPW volunteers. “Some of the DPW people have been incredibly ingenious in developing ways to make the product flow faster, the tables they’ve designed.”