Many of us find ourselves with an abundance of packaging after holidays–empty boxes, torn wrapping paper, and STYROFOAMTM. Those of us who are on the city’s recycling program have some good news: we can now recycle Styrofoam! In fact, here’s the official list of all the things we can and cannot recycle: http://alpinewaste.com/wp-content/uploads/InDepthRecyclingInfo-11232015-draft.pdf.
For those who are on programs that do not accept it, here’s some helpful news from Jim Smith at Golden Real Estate.
No doubt many Goldenites received electronic and other gifts that were packaged in block polystyrene, aka Styrofoam (a brand name). Homeowners served by Alpine Waste & Recycling have an advantage in that Alpine now accepts all forms of polystyrene (including Styrofoam cups, plates and food containers, but not peanuts). Homeowners can put their Styrofoam in the Alpine recycling bins along with other materials. No other trash hauler accepts Styrofoam. Homeowners not served by Alpine can bring their Styrofoam/polystyrene (bagged, please) to the Styrofoam Corral behind the office of Golden Real Estate on South Golden Road. That material is delivered to Alpine’s Altogether Recycling plant periodically by Golden Real Estate. Please clean your Styrofoam of non-Styrofoam materials such as cardboard, bubble or other wraps, and that spongy material that looks like Styrofoam but isn’t. If you don’t clean it, the agents of Golden Real Estate have to do it before delivering the material to the processing plant – a hard, time-consuming process! Note: packing peanuts mess up the single-stream recycling system, so peanuts should be bagged and put in your trash bins if you can’t get the UPS Store or Fedex Office or someone else to accept them for reuse.
