Ready or not, the city has begun dropping off huge, wheeled recycling bins house-by-house and at other eligible buildings in Bolton Hill. The shiny blue plastic containers will hold 65 gallons of recyclables (or two large children). They dwarf the un-lidded yellow containers given away by a previous mayor and still in use here and there.
Over the next five months the bins will be delivered to about 190,000 curbside-pickup eligible households across the city. In Bolton Hill they are to be filled and rolled out for pickup early each Friday at the same spot used for solid waste pickups. Each bin is coded to a specific location. They are intended to hold plastic, aluminum, steel or tin cans, newspaper and other mixed, clean paper and glass bottles and jars. (No scrap metal, tools, trash, yard waste, clothing or household goods, wires or stained pizza or carryout boxes, or plastic bags.)
The bins pose a dilemma for rowhouse residents without access to an alley: where to store them? Not in your front yard, please. They seem better fitted to suburban cul de sacs than to 19th century historic neighborhoods. But they are here to stay unless you want to send them back or trade for a 35-gallon version. In that case call 311 to opt out or to figure out how to get the delivered bin picked up.
–Bill Hamilton