Take the Recycling Challenge!

Keep it Green.

Here you’ll find all the information you need so that you can participate in North Lake Tahoe’s and Truckee’s Curbside recycling solution. Challenge your household to reduce waste as much as possible and recycle everything you can. Chances are you’ll have a much greater volume of recyclables than trash.

Use your BLUE BAGS to recycle all of the following:
Mixed paper: Office paper, catalogues, magazines, junk mail. Virtually all mixed paper types can be recycled!
Paper board: Paper board includes such as cereal & food boxes (remove plastic liners), paper towel and toilet paper roles.
Glass bottles and jars: All colors are okay.
Plastics numbered 1-7. Check the bottom of the container for the recycling symbol and number 1-7. Plastic bags and Styrofoam are the exceptions. Plastic bags can be dropped off at local grocery stores for recycling. Styrofoam is not recycled in Truckee, please avoid Styrofoam when possible. Mixed rigid plastics (these are generally non-food plastics, some do not have a number 1-7. Examples include old laundry baskets, children’s toys, snow disc.)
Aluminum, tin (steel) and bimetal cans.
Aluminum foil.
Cardboard: Cut it up to make it fit in the blue bag. Drop-off large quantities of cardboard at the fire station. Please do not place loose cardboard at the curb. Loose cardboard will be contaminated in the collection truck and charged as trash.

The Blue Bag Process: What happens to your BLUE BAG after it leaves your curb? What should you know in order to effectively participate in the blue bag program?

When your blue bag is picked up at the curb it is tossed in a small trash truck right along side your bag of garbage. When the small trash truck is filled it returns to a staging area where the big compacting trucks await. The load from the smaller truck is then transferred into the compactor. All the bags, both blue and black are compacted and driven to the Eastern Regional Landfill on Cabin Creek Road off HWY 89 south for processing. Truck loads of garbage and blue bags are dumped onto a floor, pushed around by heavy equipment and fed onto a conveyer belt. Two employees spend their day picking the blue bags out of the waste stream and setting them aside. Trash is then sent up a conveyer belt where 15 people pick recyclables from garbage. Depending on the time of year, the transfer station receives on average 100-250 tons of trash and recyclables from residential routes every day. Due to the high volume of trash, the conveyer belt must move quickly in order for all the trash to be processed. The 15 workers do an excellent job picking recyclables out of the trash and are able to recover 17-18% of recyclables from trash. Towards the end of the day the operation converts to processing blue bags. Blue bags are opened and the contents are sent up the conveyer for sorting, the blue bag itself is also bailed and sent to a plastic recycler. Keep in mind that recyclables in blue bags are much cleaner and easier to sort than picking recyclables from trash (we all know what we toss away). In order to assist in sorting recyclables, by material type, the conveyer belt is slowed way down when blue bags are processed. Workers are able to recover over 90% of the recyclables contained in blue bags. Using blue bags significantly increases the amount of recyclables recovered. In order to work effectively, your blue bags must hold up in the trash collection process so durability matters. When purchasing blue bags pay attention to the strength (the higher the millimeters (mil) on the package the better). Place your recyclables in your bags being mindful to not over stuff the bags and tie your blue bags securely to ensure that your recyclables will remained contained in the bag. If you have an excess amount of glass (which is heavy and could potentially tear the bag), consider using the Nex Cycle recycling facility behind Safeway or the recycling facility at the Eastern Regional Landfill. Cardboard should be cut into smaller pieces and placed in blue bags. If you have more cardboard than can easily be cut up and placed in a blue bag please utilize one of the free cardboard collection dumpsters at the Fire Station on Donner Pass Road or at the elementary school in Glenshire. Loose cardboard left beside your garbage can will be mixed with the trash, contaminated and not recycled.