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The Ins And Outs Of Curbside Recycling Programs, Roxanne Greitz Miller

Education Faculty Articles and Research

In recent years, numerous municipalities in the United States and abroad have implemented either mandatory or voluntary curbside recycling programs. In most of these programs, household trash is sorted into paper, metal (steel and aluminum), and plastic products prior to its collection and then transported for processing into recycled materials. While the materials are not recycled at the curbside, the term curbside recycling generally now represents both the collection and sorting phases for these household materials.

Before we get into specifics, please note that this particular article will only address the third R of solid waste management--recycling--and not reducing or …