Recycling in Provo

Provo- As landfills continue to pile up, some wonder if the city has any filtrated steps toward recycling. Most cities do have recycling programs. On August 1, 2003 Provo City contracted with Waste Management Inc. to create a city wide recycling program to combat against environmental waste issues.

Residents now have the option to have recyclable items picked up from their homes. But are residents taking advantage of this fairly new resource?

Provo City may have an established recycling program, but only a fraction of residents are taking advantage of the recycling program. Often times people become confused about the steps required to get signed up for the program.

The process begins with people who are interested in helping out the environment. The recycling program is all about saving space in landfills in order to make landfills last longer.

“Throwing garbage into the ground and covering it up with dirt is not justifiable by any means,” said Lyons, a 43-year-old contractor from Provo. "Most of our garbage can be eliminated. We throw so much away that can be reused.”

Recycling may be the right thing to do, but it will cost residents. A small five dollar monthly fee will be assessed to the resident’s utility bill and in exchange for the fee, Waste Management will drop off a 90-gallon blue plastic container. This container is similar to the existing black garbage bins that residents currently have.
Once the sign up fee and bin delivery have been made, citizens can begin recycling. Recyclable items include: newspapers, clean cardboard, cereal boxes, junk mail, phone books, aluminum cans, tin food cans, plastics and small appliances. These objects that can be tossed into the blue bin. There’s no need to separate the items, and depending on the amount of other recyclers in the neighborhood, the pick-up can be weekly or bi-weekly.

“I think we as Americans waste resources that could be recycled,” said Lynn Cannon, a 28 year recycling Provo City resident. “I think we need to step up and try to do our part in helping the environment by recycling. I support Provo by recycling. It‘s simple and I don‘t even need to separate the papers from plastics,” said Cannon.

Provo now has another option for those who would like to recycle but prefer not to have the curbside recycling container at their house. Residents can take recyclable items to a drop-off bin at a compost station located at 1625 South Industrial Parkway. This service is free to residents. For detailed hours of operations please use the following link. http://www.provo.org/pubworks.recycling.html . The link also includes other drop-off locations in Provo for other items that are not accepted at the recycling bin found at the compost station.

South Utah Valley Solid Waste District located in Springville is the location to drop-off non-recyclable items in southern Utah Valley that cannot be safely discarded in other recyclable bins found in Provo. For more information on accepted items please visit http://ww.suvswd.org/

To sign up for Provo's recycling program, call 852-6000.