A special post-holiday recycling event has been scheduled for West Hartford residents to drop off cardboard and boxes for recycling.

The Town of West Hartford will hold a special recycling event so that residents can properly dispose of cardboard and boxes. Public domain image

By Ronni Newton

Trash bins and recycling bins tend to fill up quickly during the holidays, and the Town of West Hartford has added a special recycling event to help ensure that more of the waste material is disposed of properly.

“People consume more cardboard at this time of year, and it becomes a capacity issue,” Director of Public Works John Phillips said. Once the blue recycling bin gets full, many residents decide to just add unwanted cardboard and boxes to their trash bin rather than keep it lying around until the next recycling day comes around.

“Cardboard day is a new day, a new strategy for waste management reduction,” Phillips said.

The special holiday box and cardboard drop-off will be held on Saturday, Dec. 31, 2016, from 8 a.m. until noon, at the UConn West Hartford Campus parking lot on the east side of Trout Brook Drive near the intersection with Asylum Avenue. The snow date is Jan. 7, 2017.

Residents are asked to break down and flatten or collapse boxes. The cardboard doesn’t need to be associated with holiday packaging, but it must be clean – meaning no greasy pizza boxes. However, the non-greasy parts of pizza boxes can be torn off and recycled.

All non-cardboard material like wrapping paper, bows, styrofoam, and other packing material should be removed prior to drop-off.

Phillips thinks the timing of the event, on New Year’s Eve, is perfect for those looking to purge their homes of what is unneeded as they prepare for the start of a new year.

“Drop it off so it gets into the right waste stream,” Phillips said.

For more information contact the Department of Public Works at 860-561-8100.

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