My roommate and I got the blue can a few months ago and it's amazing how much you end up putting in there. Our regular trash can is rarely full and the blue can is always brimming over.

When I've written stories about recycling the city and county always tell me that they in fact don't make money off recycling. Because so few people do it, it  isn't profitable, they say. I believe the city is actually subsidizing the program since it dropped the monthly rate to $4 last year.

Good to know Dirt. I will explain this to my naysaying neighbors!

(Great idea to offer your expertise on other staff blogs)

What does one have to do to get a blue trash can??

I don't have a lot of plastic items..certainly not enough to fill a barrel in the next month or so but I do accumulate cans.  After a year and a half of storing them I finally made it down to the recycling center and got a whopping 26 bucks for the lot.  After opening the sticky bags and filling up the recyclers cans I decided that was enough for me.  Now I've decided to fill one tall trash can bag at a time and when it's full, I'll set it at the curb with a sign that says "Free Cans."  I have every faith that it will be gone within hours.  I'm in a direct path of school kids and a lot of walkers and they are wecome to them.  I can't bring myself to put them in the regular trash can so this way someone can benefit from my cans.

vidalma: Call the Solid Waste Division at 326-3114 to sign up or for more information.

Four bucks just too much to spend for the month to have your cans, plastics and paper products picked up and recycled every other week, Nancy? Leaving the cans in a bag on the curb is a great way to grow insects.

Adam, and sitting in my house they won't grow insects?  They sat in the garage for 1 1/2 years and still only brought  $26 and  they wouldn't be on the curb more than a couple of hours..guaranteed.  It might just benefit the tweakers but hey, someone has to do it.  (jk)

I'll repeat.  I have very few plastics as I drink canned soda.  (a lot)  And no, I will NOT pay to have recycleables picked up.  I was against that plan from the beginning and still am.  I'll gladly give them to anyone who wants them though.

People, bear in mind I have no live at home children, no roommate and only two dogs.  Their food comes in paper bags 40# at a time.  Most of mine comes in either a can, frozen in cardboard,  or wrapped in paper from the butcher shop.  I have enough trouble trying to remember to set out the green can on Mon. and the brown can on Wed. and now I'm asked to set out a blue can on what day?  Do they even have this in the county?

This kind of attitude probably makes people lie about their recycling habits lest they be accused of hating the earth.

Glad to hear that you've turned "blue" amox!  It truly is amazing how much recycleables we throw away.  

If anyone knows, how do they (Solid Waste Division) separate the aluminum cans, plastic & paper?

I agree Nancy, it is hard to remember to put the trash cans out on different days...especially when I can't remember what day it is anyway!  Down south all cans are put out the same day ... with different trucks picking up each one, duh .... Bakersfield Solid Waste should start this procedure. 

I went to graduate school in a town with curbside recycling and perhaps I just got spoiled, but man I like it. When I moved down here, I lasted about 3 months before paying for my blue bin. I don't drink sodas at all and I use sports bottles for my water, so I have no aluminum and very little plastic (juice and soap bottles mostly). But I have enough paper and cardboard to choke a goat and I could never remember to load it in the car and take it to one of the community bins. Now I just toss it all into my blue bin and roll it to the curb. I bet the $4 for the pickup is cheaper than the gas it would cost me these days to haul the paper over to a community bin.

great point Shwaine. as gas prices rise i wonder if less people will be inclined to drop off their recycling and instead just stick it in the brown trash bin.

Blossom, when I lived in the city all cans were picked up on Wed.  Here in the county it's split up.  Now, if all cans were picked up on the same day, and the blue cans were provided free of charge, I'd probably use them. 

Question...They're saying that the plastic AND paper go in the same bin?  What about glass?  Do they have sorters once it gets to the recycling place?

I was watching one of the channels like NG or Disc. and they showed how waste is handled in New York.  They had a vast area where, in a huge building they had conveyor belts going every which way with different trash falling through and headed in different directions depending on what it was.  The conveyor belts took the refuse to trucks to be disposed of.  Seems like if a city the size on New York figured it out, Bakersfield should be able to as well.

Paper, plastic, glass, aluminum, tin, etc.... it all goes into the blue bin. They take it to a sorting facility where it is seperated out. Probably one of the reasons it costs a bit more. Where I went to graduate school, they had a seperate bin for paper and then the rest went into a mixed bin to be sorted. That was probably to keep the paper from getting dirty. Not sure how they handle contaminated paper here.

Not to sound flip but what goes in the regular can?   Seems most is covered with the blue can.

diapers!

ROFL..then my brown can (no pun intended) would never get used.

Basically, anything that's not recyclable or "clean" enough for recycling (like paper towels used to clean up after cooking) goes in my brown bin. For me, that's mostly lots of scooped cat litter and one kitchen bag worth of trash each week. If not for the stink of the kitty litter, I wouldn't even bother rolling it to the curb each week since it's so empty. 

The majority of the stuff going in our blue trash is paper.  Magazines, junk mail, food boxes (like cereal), shipping boxes, paper bags, etc...  We are a family of 4 with 2 young kids.  Our brown can used to overflow and now it's never full since we can divert so many bulky items to the blue can.  I love that we don't have to sort the recyclable ourselves either, totally worth the $4/month.