Rockford residents are recycling about 40 percent more since they got big trash can-type recycling containers with caps.

“When it comes to recycling, people tend to fill whatever size container you give them,” said John Lichty, president and CEO of Rock River Environmental Service, which owns the operation that picks up trash and recyclables in the city of Rockford.

The company has been putting out the bigger recycling containers – 32 gallons compared to the old 18-gallon, rectangular bins — since April. Putting them everywhere in the city took four months. What happened to recycling tonnage as the cans were distributed, neighborhood by neighborhood, is telling:

March: 440 tons of recyclables

April: 496 tons, the first time some people had the larger containers

May: 597 tons

June: 643 tons

What Rock River Disposal saw citywide is true in smaller doses in many households, mine included. We used to take out a trash can and three or four black plastic bags of garbage each week. After we got the new container and renewed our recycling efforts, we cut the trash down to less than one can a week.

That means less — a lot less — going to the landfill where it is buried and left to rot. Unfortunately, Lichty cannot compare trash tonnage because (1) his trucks are picking up outside the city as well as inside this year and (2) trash weight varies a lot depending on how wet the weather is.

Last week’s column, in which I asked how people handle multiple waste containers in their homes, brought some replies. Two readers said they bought double or quadruple waste units when they remodeled and had them installed in deep drawers as part of their cupboards. One keeps two wastebaskets in the kitchen — one for garbage and one for recyclables, and one keeps a basket on her cupboard near the back door for things that can be recycled.

Several readers asked exactly what can be recycled.

In the city of Rockford, these things can go in the recycling can: newspaper, junk mail, envelopes, magazines, catalogs, paper bags, telephone books, PET plastic bottles, HDPE plastic jugs and cartons, other things with a 1 or 2 inside a triangle on the bottom, plastic cups and food packaging, Styrofoam cups and containers (triangles 3-7), cardboard without packing filler, chipboard, aluminum, steel and tin cans, aerosol cans if they’re empty, foil and foil baking pans, food jars and beverage bottles.

Do not put these things out for recycling: plastic grocery bags, paper towels, napkins, facial tissues, diapers, hazardous waste containers, vehicle parts, appliances, TVs or monitors.

For information on recycling many of those, log on to knib.org or call Keep Northern Illinois Beautiful at 815-637-1343.

Finally, this comment came from Linda and Lee Johnson (you might know them from their bird banding activity at the Sand Bluff Bird Observatory). They are pioneers in the world of recycling, having started back in the ’70s when oil shortages got our attention. Back then, you had to soak the labels off tin cans, take off both the tops and bottoms, smash them flat, and haul them to a recycling center yourself.

The Johnsons are recycling pros. They have a big drawer for newspaper “slicks,” (the ad inserts), junk mail, small plastic packaging and flattened cereal boxes.

Most everything else goes in a bin in a closet. Linda says to wash the stuff so it doesn’t attract flies and other creepy crawlies. The refrigerator holds a gallon ice cream pail in which they put potato peelings and other compost materials. They take magazines to the library

where people pick them up for free, and newspapers to a farmer neighbor who shreds them and uses them as bedding for cattle.

The aluminum they keep to sell. Linda says they recently took two vans full of metal to a recycler and came home with $140.

Here are a few more of Linda’s thoughts:

“You do know that plastic water bottles and pop bottles are made from petroleum ... I made a vow to God that I would stop using Styrofoam cups and plates because they are made from oil...”

Why buy something you just use once and then throw away, she asks.

Amen, Linda.
