Sunday, April 16, 2006: Beauty Spots Closed

Beauty Spots:

• Saturday, April 15, 2006: Normal Saturday hours at both Beauty Spots.
• Sunday, April 16, 2006: Both the Damascus and Poolesville Beauty Spots will be closed for the Easter holiday.

Shady Grove Transfer Station: It's business as usual at the on these dates -- there are no changes to operating hours.

Earth Day Celebration: April 22, 2006

Celebrate Earth Day with us on April 22, 2006. Seize the rare opportunity to tour the Recycling Center on a Saturday! Enjoy exhibits on recycling, waste reduction, and buying recycled... and more. For information: www.montgomerycountymd.gov/solidwaste

Saturday, April 22, 2006
11:00 am to 3:00 pm, rain or shine!
850 Hungerford Drive, Rockville, Maryland
(in the parking lot in front of Montgomery County Public Schools Headquarters)

National Poison Prevention Week

This week is National Poison Prevention Week. More than 90% of the poisonings reported to Poison Control Centers each year happen in homes, says poisonprevention.org.

While bringing fewer hazardous products into your home, and using products with lower toxicity are two lines of defense, what can you do with the products you already have? The US EPA has online resources for locking up hazardous products. When you are ready to dispose of products you no longer need or want, remember our Household Hazardous Waste collections. We offer this service to County residents at no charge.

Got hazardous products from a business? Check out our ECOWISE program for small-quantity generators.

Cell phones: free mailing label for recycling

A number of local retailers accept cell phones for recycling. And, our County Sheriff's office and Victim Services' program reuse cell phones. These options beat putting those obsolete or no-longer-functioning phones into the trash.

Still, in order to participate, you have to remember to pack up the phone and charger, and take them to their destination. After one too many encounters with my toddler, I myself have a broken phone in my possession. The problem is that I only remember to take this phone to the drop-off point as I am driving past it. And when this happens, the phone is several miles away, tucked away on a shelf at home.

My excuses have just disappeared! I learned that you can print out a mailing label (postage-paid!), affix it to an envelope, tuck the phone inside, and drop it into a mailbox to send it on its way. What could be easier?!

Spring 2006 BTS Course is full

Wow! We still have almost six weeks to go until the Spring 2006 Behind the Scenes course begins, but so many of you have already registered that the course is full. We'll spend seven meetings and a field trip talking about... trash and recycling. I'm looking forward to it -- even though I've coordinated this program for many years, I learn new things each time.

Didn't make it into the course? Fear not! You are welcome to join the group for the April 22 field trip to the County's solid waste facilities in Dickerson, MD. (Yes, that's Earth Day. No, that was not planned, but it's a fitting coincidence.) We'll visit the Resource Recovery Facility (our waste-to-energy plant) and the Yard Trim Composting Facility. Please preregister for the trip. That lets me know how many groups we'll need to split into for our RRF tour. It also lets me know how many lunch fixin's we'll need -- we don't want any growling tummies or sagging energy due to hunger in the afternoon!

Plastics recycling: are dirty curbside finds recyclable?

Received in the mail:

As I walk through my neighborhood I sometimes take along a bag and collect trash bottles from the curbside. Some of these are awfully dirty, some even still have the caps on and are so dirty I avoid removing them. Is it OK to recycle these, regardless of their condition?

Thank you for your commitment to recycling, and for taking a bag along with you on your outings! (So often, I first remember the bag when I spot the litter, at which point it is, of course, too late. And, you can only carry so much in your hands...)

I put your question to our Recycling Center manager. He says that clean bottles are always preferable. Nonetheless, he would accept your "curbside finds" as-is, without any washing.

Before tossing the bottles into your blue bin for collection, please remove the lids. Why? The lids are most often made from a different plastic resin and through different molding processes than the bottles themselves. As a result, the lids would be "contaminants" in a bale of bottle plastic. So, please put those lids into the trash.

If this post inspires you to do more, consider learning more about Montgomery County's beautification and clean-up programs, including Adopt-A-Road and the Keep Montgomery County Beautiful task force.

Newsletter Helper: Disposal of Large Tree Branches

Ay! What if those March winds and April showers bring you lots of downed branches instead of (or, in addition to) May flowers? Our February 2006 Newsletter Helper offers some solutions. We'll be happy to take bagged or bundled pieces up to 4 feet long and 4 inches in diameter right from your curb. (Please limit those bundles to 45 pounds.) Larger pieces are accepted at the Shady Grove Tranfer Station.

Why the size and weight limit and that bundling requirement for curbside collections? Collection crews toss those bundles into their trucks by hand. And, they serve several hundred homes on a given route. Bags and bundles are much more efficient to load than the loose branches would be. And, the weight limit helps to protect the crews' backs.

Presidents' Day - Feb. 20: normal schedule

Monday, February 20, 2006 ~ Presidents' Day ~ is a regular recycling and trash collection day. All County-provided recycling and trash collections will be made on their normal schedule. If you have any questions or concerns about your County-provided collection, please contact our Customer Service staff online or call 240-777-6410.

Note: if you (or your community) have a private contract for your trash collection, these schedule announcements may not apply to your trash service -- check with your hauler or community manager.

Feb. 13, 2006: Normal collections

We are on our normal recycling and trash collection schedule for today, with no delays due to this weekend's snow.

Please remember to have your items out at the curb for collection by 7 a.m. And, where there are snow banks and parked cars, please place your bins and cans so that crews can see them easily from the street.

Feb. 12, 2006: Snow Closings

The Shady Grove Transfer Station is closed today.

The Damascus and Poolesville Beauty Spots are closed also, as our Highway Maintenance colleagues focus all of their attention on today's snow removal effort.

Bikes: Spring/Summer 2006 collection events

The materials we receive via our scrap metal collection program sometimes includes bicycles in usable or reparable condition. Our collaboration with Bikes for the World, a sponsored project of the Washington Area Bicycle Assocation, puts those reusable bikes back into service.

Bikes for the World has just announced its Spring/Summer 2006 collection schedule. Four local retailers also serve as drop-off points.

We continue to accept bicycles at the Shady Grove Transfer Station, and encourage you to use the BfW collection event/location closest to you.

Delve "Behind the Scenes" with us!

What better New Year resolution than to learn more about... waste!? Our "Behind the Scenes" course stands ready to assist. :-)

Where do your recyclables and trash go after the trucks rumble through your neighborhood collecting them? Journey with the Division of Solid Waste Services' award-winning "Behind the Scenes" course, and see for yourself! "I never knew I could learn such interesting things about trash!" say course participants. Of course, we'll spend lots of time talking about recycling, too.

The Spring 2006 course will meet on Wednesday evenings from 7-9 p.m. at the Shady Grove Transfer Station, April 5 through May 17. The course is free; pre-registration is required.

Details and online registration

"Thinking Inside the Compost Bin"

In today's Washington Post, Adrian Higgins encourages us to "think inside the composting bin". His article on composting outlines some of the basics of choosing and using different bin styles.

Montgomery County offers a wealth of composting and gardening information on its website, ideal reading on these chilly winter days when your thoughts turn to Spring.

Want a bin or two to get you started? Montgomery County has free compost bins for its residents and businesses.

Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., Day - Jan. 16: normal schedule

Monday, January 16, 2006 ~ Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., Day
~ is a regular recycling and trash collection day. All County-provided recycling and trash collections will be made on their normal schedule. If you have any questions or concerns about your County-provided collection, please contact our Customer Service staff online or call 240-777-6410.

Note: if you (or your community) have a private contract for your trash collection, these schedule announcements may not apply to your trash service -- check with your hauler or community manager.

Dickerson Area Facilities Implementation Group - two vacancies

Live in the Upcounty area? Want a voice in how we operate? The Dickerson Area Facilities Implementation Group for residents of the affected Upcounty community has two vacancies. The purpose of this group is to address community and environmental issues and concerns pertaining to the County's solid waste facilities located in the Dickerson area.

Additional information about the Dickerson Area Facilities Implementation Group

New Year's Day, January 1, 2006: normal collections

Because New Year's Day (January 1, 2006) falls on a Sunday, County-provided recycling and trash collections will be on their normal days. The collection schedule will not change during this holiday week.

Full holiday announcement

It's a wrap: recycle your gifts' paper

After all of your packages are unwrapped, what to do with the package trimmings?

Regular wrapping paper and tissue paper (for example, what you might use to wrap a shirt before placing it lovingly into a gift box) may go into your blue paper recycling cart.

Things which should go out as trash [if you cannot reuse them :-) ] include:

• foil-stamped paper and gift bags


• plastic-coated paper and gift bags


• plastic films


• ribbons and bows

Christmas Day, December 25, 2005: normal collections

Because Christmas Day (December 25, 2005) and New Year's Day (January 1, 2006) fall on Sundays, County-provided recycling and trash collections will be on their normal days. The collection schedule will not change during these two holiday weeks.

Full holiday announcement

Damascus Beauty Spot closed December 17 + 18, 2005

After the roads are sanded and salted… the supplies need to be restocked.

For this reason, the Damascus Beauty Spot (located at a Highway Maintenance Depot) will be closed this weekend, December 17 and 18, 2005 -- new loads of salt will be coming in.

The Poolesville Beauty Spot will be open for its normal weekend hours.

More information about our facilities and their hours

Friday, December 9, 2005: normal collection

Montgomery County-provided recycling and trash collections are on their normal schedule today. There are no pickup changes due to today's snow.