FRIDAY, DECEMBER 12, 2014

Early next year, some garbage collection routes will be selected as the first to participate in Richmond's new recycling program. Homeowners and residents of apartment buildings with four or fewer units will receive a new giant green cart with a blue lid. Put all your recyclable items such as paper, No. 1 and No. 2 plastics, cardboard, junk mail, newspapers, glass bottles, aluminum and tin cans in this bin instead of your regular trash can and it will be picked up every other week on your regular trash collection day.

Six thousand 95-gallon cans will be distributed during the first phase of the program, made possible by a $420,000 grant from a recycling nonprofit organization. These carts will go to neighborhoods with alley trash pickup. Recipients will receive postcards in the mail explaining when the carts will arrive and how to use them. The carts will have electronic tracking tags, so they can be traced if stolen.

By the end of 2015, all city residents will have the cans.

Central Virginia Waste Management Authority will administer the recycling program. The total cost of supplying carts to all 61,000 city households is approximately $3.2 million, but will save $26,000 per year by reducing the amount of regular trash collected and buried in the landfills and reuse of materials will have an economic value of $6.5 million.

Once the program is fully operational, the small, 18-gallon recycling bins will no longer be collected. Residents living in apartment buildings and condos larger than four units should use the recycling containers provided by their building management.