recycling bins

[pjmorgan.livejournal.com]

I'm starting to see Somerville recycling barrels on wheels, these seem preferable to the short blue boxes, since they are larger (our recycling bins are normally overflowing) and have a lid (way neater looking).  The city brochure below states that it is for

collecting papers and commingled material

Does this mean that you can put all recycling in them just like you do in the blue boxes?  Or is there some difference between what you can put in either?  Is this just a generic description of why recycling is? 

http://www.somervillema.gov/CoS_Content/documents/EnvironmentalGuide2008.pdf

Also does anyone have any feelings in general about using these (which cost money) versus the free blue square bins?

Comments

[ron_newman]

My 50-unit apartment building has these. They are essential for any large building like this one.

"Commingled" means you put all of your recycling in them, just like in the blue bins.

[chenoameg.livejournal.com]

Do you need to bag paper and cardboard separately for the large bins as you do for the small ones?

[ron_newman]

My building tries to reserve some bins for paper and others for bottles and cans, but that's not necessary

[derekp.livejournal.com]

This makes no sense to me. Do different trucks pick up the big roller bins or something? If I mix paper with cans in my small blue bin, I get a bright orange warning sticker on my bin and they don't take it. This was as of Summer 2007, anyway. I've been putting my papers in a separate paper grocery bag ever since.

And what about cardboard? They won't take it if I don't break it down and put it NEXT to my bin. It certainly can't be co-mingled. I've had them leave cardboard I broke down and bundled as well - presumably because the bundle was too large.

[roosto.livejournal.com]

t'would seem that recycling is not actually single stream (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Single_Stream_Recycling). City's website (http://www.somervillema.gov/section.cfm?org=Environ&page=108) says to co-mingle containers, but separate mixed paper & cardboard.

[jodi.livejournal.com]

The city of Boston has recently moved some of its neighborhoods that were on the bin system with separate packaging to a large bin and clear bag system. Fo r example, one of my places of business was for many years using a blue bin that required a strict separation of goods. Now we have a barrel like theone you describe and can toss anything in it (which takes some mental adjustment!) or we can use clear garbage bags (which are comingled the same way). I don't know how similar the specifics are between Boston's changes and what Somerville is doing, though.