By elaine van develde
Staff Writer
TINTON FALLS — By the new year, there will be a new recycling container at the curb of every house.
The borough bonded for $188,000 and bought 5,000 new 95-gallon, blue recycling containers that can be picked up by its automated garbage trucks.
In use for some time now, the automated garbage trucks grab containers with a hydraulic arm and toss the contents into the truck bed where the garbage is compacted. It leaves the empty container at the curb. The only manpower required by the trucks is a person to drive and operate them.
The new containers are expected to cut down on the manpower needed to collect recyclables and allow the borough to redistribute its workforce to get projects that have remained on the back burner done, said Public Works Director John Bucciero.
Public Works employees will start delivering the containers at the end of this month, Bucciero said. Without them, "we’ve been collecting recyclables by hand. It took two guys on a trailer and one driving the truck. The borough always provided small, green containers, but now people will have the large containers and one person."
Bucciero added that where the borough normally uses three trucks with three trailers and three employees, there will now be three garbage trucks with three drivers.
"In all, with respect to manpower, we will save on one day of the week up to nine guys, and on another day, up to six," Bucciero said.
Residents, he said, will have things a little easier, too, since the containers have wheels and can hold a large amount of co-mingled recyclables.
"It makes it easier for everyone all around," said Bucciero.
The trucks will start picking up recyclables the new way starting at the end of January, he added.
In the meantime, the new containers will be delivered with a flier containing full instructions on their use.
The old containers will be picked up on the first recycling day of the new year. Residents will be asked to put the old containers on the curb with their trash when Public Works will pick them up.
Each new plastic container will have a serial number. When they are delivered, it will be marked where each container goes. If the container is stolen, lost or mixed up, things can be straightened out easier, said Bucciero.
Recyclables will now be taken to Ocean County’s recycling facility where "we won’t be paying any money for dumping recyclables, as we have in the past. It will be a trade-off situation," Bucciero said.
He said that the borough currently pays $35 a ton to get rid of bottles at a Long Branch recycling facility.