Stratham is the first New Hampshire municipality to be awarded a prestigious Residental Curbside Recycling Cart Grant from The Recycling Partnership
STRATHAM, N.H. (Jan. 19, 2021) – The Town of Stratham is on a roll with recycling, rolling out new lidded, wheeled recycling carts for residents this winter as part of a broader transition to a new automated curbside collection program.
With a newly automated recycling collection program beginning in February, residents will be able to place all recyclables directly into either a 95-gallon recycling carts provided to single-family homes or a 65-gallon recycling carts provided to townhouses and condominiums. The new carts will begin arriving at homes the week of January 18 and collection will begin the week of February 2, continuing weekly.
Stratham applied for and received a grant from The Recycling Partnership, a national nonprofit organization, in recognition of its commitment to recycling. The Recycling Partnership’s $51,200 grant is the first of its kind for a New Hampshire municipality. It will help offset costs for 3,200 new recycling carts and includes funding for education and outreach about recycling and the Town’s new collection process.
“We are grateful for the support of The Recycling Partnership, thorugh a community survey and extensive deliberation by the Towns people and our Curbside Collection Advisory Committee, the commitment to a robust recycling program at curbside was deep and consistent,” said David Moore, Town Administrator for Stratham.
The new lidded carts replace the smaller open (uncovered) red bins that were undersized for most residents and led to migration of materials into the environment. The new collection system will increase residents’ recycling container capacity dramatically.
“The Recycling Partnership is proud to partner with the Town of Stratham to expand access to recycling for the town’s 7,400 residents,” said Chris Coady, Director of Community Programs at The Recycling Partnership. “We are thrilled to support Stratham residents’ efforts to recycle more, better, capturing more quality recyclables and unlocking critical supply for the circular economy.”
Now, more than ever, Americans view recycling as an essential public service. The new automated service, beginning in February, will offer contact-free recycling service, keeping workers safer during a pandemic. And during a time of social distancing where many non-essential employees are working remotely and commercial recycling is near an all-time low, producers see residential recycling programs as a critical supply chain for much-needed materials.
The Town is asking residents to review the list of acceptable materials, including cardboard, paper, bottles, jugs, tubs, aluminum and steel cans, and glass bottles and jars. To help limit trash and other non-recyclables in the recycling carts, please empty food and drink containers and then place them directly into the recycling cart—no bagging of items is required. Some items that cannot be recycled include plastic bags, paper towels, electrical equipment, batteries, and clothing. These items often get placed into recycling carts because of “wishcycling,” or the wish that they can be recycled, but well-intentioned, non-recyclable items cause serious issues in recycling facilities including equipment malfunction, unsafe working conditions, and the possibility of fires. For most residents, recycling collection days will remain the same.
To learn more about what is and isn’t recyclable and to check your recycling day, please visit https://casella.com/stratham-nh
About The Recycling Partnership
The Recycling Partnership is a national nonprofit organization that leverages corporate partner funding to transform recycling for good in states, cities, and communities nationwide. As the leading organization in the country that engages the full recycling supply chain from the corporations that manufacture products and packaging to local governments charged with recycling to industry end markets, haulers, material recovery facilities, and converters, The Recycling Partnership positively impacts recycling at every step in the process. Since 2014, the nonprofit change agent diverted 230 million pounds of new recyclables from landfills, saved 465 million gallons of water, avoided more than 250,000 metric tons of greenhouse gases, and drove significant reductions in targeted contamination rates. Learn more at recyclingpartnership.org.