How to Recycle Right

• Is dryness limiting or causing painful

• Do you occasionally dribble or leak when you sneeze, cough or exercise?

• Have you ever “not quite made it” to the bathroom on time?

Do you know how to recycle right? As recycling has expanded, so has confusion about what can and cannot be thrown in your blue Cartlanta bin. The Office of Sustainability recently conducted a recycling audit of Atlanta’s recycling route quadrants and found contamination rates of 21 to 43 percent. That means that residents are throwing trash in their recycling bin and not recycling right.

Mixing the wrong items in with the recycling stream can cause workplace injuries at the recycling facility, damage to equipment and ruin an otherwise perfectly good recycling load. This is a big problem you can help fix.

Here are three simple rules of recycling that can work to dramatically improve our contamination rates:

1. Recycle cans, cartons, glass, paper and plastic.

2. Keep items clean and dry. Wet newspapers and cardboard especially are not recyclable.

3. Don’t put plastic bags in your blue bin, and do not bag recyclables. Plastic bags are the #1 contaminant in Atlanta’s recycling stream. Plastic bags, wraps and film can be recycled at your local grocery store and other retail outlets. Please visit plasticfilmrecycling. org to find drop off locations nearest you.

Please note that the City of Atlanta is STILL accepting glass in our curbside recycling stream. In an earlier INtown column, I drafted details of the City’s policy on glass. If you want more information on this subject, it can be found at AtlantaINtownPaper.com. Want to be a recycling champion? Here are ways you can help:

1. Recycle hard-to-recycle materials: If you have materials that are not eligible for curbside recycling, you can take them to the Center for Hard to Recycle Materials (“CHaRM”), located at 1110 Hill Street. CHaRM operates in partnership with the City and is run by Live Thrive, a nonprofit that works to reduce the materials sent to our landfills.

2. Come to your NPU to learn about recycling: the Office of Sustainability is visiting every NPU between now and year’s end to educate residents about how to recycle right.

3. Invite us to speak to your local school, club or organization.The Office of Sustainability is looking for opportunities to meet residents and teach our community how to recycle right.

4. Become a Recycling Ambassador. We’re looking for residents to work with us on educating your neighbors on the do’s and don’ts of recycling right, so join us!

I can be reached at (404) 865-8717 or sbenfield@atlantaga.gov if you have questions about Atlanta’s recycling program or want to become more involved. I look forward to us working together to make Atlanta a leader in recycling.

Volunteers turned out for Plantlanta, an effort to plant new trees around Intown to increase the city’s tree canopy.

Trees Atlanta held its first annual citywide tree planting, Plantlanta, last month. The project saw tree plantings in each of the 12 city council districts, and were led by Trees Atlanta staff, volunteers and Atlanta City Council representatives. Hundreds of volunteers spent a Saturday morning planting, mulching, and watering new trees to increase the canopy in Atlanta neighborhoods.

The City of Atlanta has joined the U.S. Department of Energy’s Better Communities Alliance (BCA), a collaborative effort among local governments, philanthropies, nonprofit organizations and leading private companies to accelerate local clean energy progress and leadership across the country. Through the BCA, the City of Atlanta Mayor’s Office of Sustainability will continue its efforts to educate and encourage residents and businesses to reduce wasted energy in homes and buildings, as well as expand renewable energy and sustainable transportation options, harness new energy-saving technologies and invest in resilient power systems and community infrastructure. BCA is part of the broader Better Buildings Initiative, which aims to make commercial, public, industrial, and residential buildings 20 percent more energy efficient over the next decade.

The Urban Land Institute (ULI), an international organization dedicated to championing cutting-edge and sustainable development, awarded Dad’s Garage Theatre their 2016 Jury Award for best renovation in Atlanta. The award is for the transformation of a former-church into the “forever home” of the popular improv theatre. Dad’s Garage purchased the property at 569 Ezzard Street in the Old Fourth Ward in January 2015, following a Kickstarter campaign that brought in more than $150,000. That campaign was the most successful live theatre fundraiser in Kickstarter history, and received contributions from across the world.

The Captain Planet Foundation’s 25th Anniversary Benefit Gala will be held on Friday, Dec. 9, at the InterContinental Buckhead Atlanta, 3315 Peachtree Road, from 6 to 9:30 p.m. Single tickets are $750, $1,500 per couple, and corporate tables start at $5,000. The charitable evening will raise funds for the Foundation’s programs, which promote and support hands-on environmental education projects in K-12 schools in all 50 states and 22 other countries. For more information or tickets, visit captainplanetfoundation.org/benefitgala.