🍗🍴♻ Inside this issue: America Recycles Day, Zero Waste Thanksgiving, Give a Great Story this holiday season, and more! 🍗🍴♻

November 2019
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Today is America Recycles Day and this year we're focusing on recycling contamination. “Tanglers” are contaminants such as plastic bags, trash bags, garden hoses, clothing, rope and other flexible items that can cause problems during the recycling process.

Untangle ATX this America Recycles Day

Imagine a large recycling sorting facility (where the items from your blue recycling cart end up). This facility has several large machines that are made up of a series of gears and cogs moving at high speeds, sorting through the materials. When plastic bags, garden hoses, rope and other tanglers end up in this sorting process, they get wrapped around the gears and cogs of the machine. This leads to delays and even standstills in operations, as employees must now shut down the machinery in order to remove the items. It’s a tangled mess. Help us Untangle ATX this year by keeping tanglers out of your blue recycling cart.

Bring your turkey full circle: recycle your cooking oil

Many people deep fry turkeys during the holiday season, leaving behind a lot of used cooking oil. But, what do you do with it afterwards? It can actually be dropped off for recycling!

Serve up your Thanksgiving feast, sustainably

There's a new, local service that provides Austin area residents with reusable alternatives to single-use dishes and utensils. The Austin Dish Lending Library is exactly like a library; but instead of books, it’s bowls. The library allows people to temporarily borrow plates, bowls, cups, silverware and other dishware for an upcoming event, whether it be an office party or at-home Thanksgiving celebration. Not only does using the library save you money (it’s free!), but it also helps keep single-use plastics out of the landfill.

Give a great story this holiday season

Searching for the perfect holiday gift for your family and friends? It may not fit in a box. Instead of the latest gadget or toy, give the gift of a great story. These fun and memorable gift ideas have the added bonus of being zero-waste friendly!

Congratulations to the City of Austin & University of Texas Austin Office of Sustainability for receiving Honorable Mention for an Outstanding Recycling Partnership in STAR's 2019 Texas Environmental Leadership Awards, for their collaboration on MoveOutATX.

Happy Holidays from Austin Resource Recovery! Remember that all trash, recycling and compost (or yard trimmings) collections will "slide" forward one day on Thanksgiving. Use the My Schedule tool to check your personalized curbside services calendar and set up reminders for all your collections.

Get My Schedule

Shred old documents at Austin ARMA’s Free Fall Shred Day on November 16. All shredded materials will be recycled.

Learn More

The City of Austin has updated its gift policy to allow employees to accept small gifts of gratitude from the public. Things like food, bottled water, coffee or boxed lunches are acceptable, so long as they are under a $50 value. Employees cannot ever accept cash or gift cards, (even if under $50) or gifts that are intended to improperly influence or reward their work. You can always show appreciation by leaving a compliment with 3-1-1 or on our Facebook page.

Leave a Compliment

Do you own or manage a business? Attend a free Universal Recycling Ordinance (URO) training session to network with other business owners and property managers, and learn about zero waste best practices and the City of Austin’s recycling and organics requirements. City staff will answer questions and provide assistance. Free educational materials will be available.

Learn More

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