An Odd El Paso Recycling Practice

Everyone gripes about El Paso rules and regs but I just learned about a certain practice that doesn't really make sense to me. It has to do with losing your recycle bin.

I know peeps who had their blue recycle bin taken away because, (allegedly), they they tossed something into it that they shouldn't have. We all make mistakes right? El Paso Water recently purchased a lake and a dam without inspecting the dam.

"Dam" near flooded Paisano street in the Upper Valley. Oops. Anyway ...

Seizing Recycling Bins

If you violate the recycling rules, you could lose your blue bin. I get that, it's what happens next that I think is kinda dumb. Once your bin gets locked up, you can't have it back until you take a class in the proper use of it. Ok, I guess ... thing is, you don't have to get it back. In fact you don't have to use the one you have now.

Why Is Seizing Recycling Bins Dumb?

It basically turns someone who isn't using it correctly into someone who doesn't use it at all. The goal is to encourage recycling, not make it stop.

They should just resend the instructions with a notice that the next mistake will cost them $$. If somebody goofed, now they know to pay more attention.

READ MORE: No Recycling On Windy Days?

It may not have even been their fault. I've found things in my trash and recycle bins a few times that I didn't put there. Note to whatever sketchy contractor or yard guy that filled my bin, (completely), with lawn and weed cuttings, I'm watching now. Go ahead - try it again.

Anyway, if someone is being careless or victimized, once they know it's going to cost them, they'll straighten up and/or pay more attention to what goes in 'da bin. Lessons are learned, recycling continues and everybody's happy.

Recycling = Money

If you really want people recycling, don't penalize them - pay 'em. When my friends and I were little, you couldn't find aluminum cans, glass bottles or scrap metal anywhere. We grabbed that stuff before it hit the ground and sold it. Something you can still do today at several places around town.

Sam's Club, (wisely), took a stab at buying plastic from people to get it off the streets and out of the landfills a few years ago. Hopefully, they'll do it again someday.

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Another weird thing about the requirements to get a bin back is the fact that you don't have to do anything to get it back. You can just throw everything in the trash. Something, (sad, but true), most people would rather do than jump through the hoops.

Recycling Is Voluntary

If you don't want to bother with recycling, (Which, c'mon ... you really should. Either via the blue bin or by taking recyclables in yourself), you can opt out of the program completely.

Only do that if you have some other method of recycling though, ok? Be cool.

NOTE: “Previous version mistakenly credited El Paso Water as being in charge of recycling. This is a corrected version of the original article.”