Recycling is a campaign to help individuals do their part and reduce the need for new, potentially environmentally damaging materials. We can recycle a myriad of items including glass, plastics, paper products, and more. However, these programs can vary wildly from state to state, county to county, and even city to city.
What Is Boise Offering To Encourage Individual Recycling Efforts?
The good news – Boise offers curbside recycling to many customers. Boise’s 2023 CURB IT Recycle program allows households to put out a bin with their normal garbage collection on a bi-weekly basis. These recycling bins can come in three sizes – Small (48 Gallons), Medium (65 Gallons), and Large (95 Gallons). They even offer a super easy Home Reference Guide to help you know what products can be recycled through the program! And, if you’re a power-recycler, Boise allows you to easily update to a larger bin or, if necessary, get a second one – but, this comes with additional costs (currently $0.63/cart plus $27.53 for cart pick up, if replacing an existing cart).
Unfortunately, Boise’s recycling program does not include Glass recycling by default. For this, you’ll have to go on their website to request a 65-gallon glass recycling cart and pay an additional $7.09 per month (as of February 2023) for this service or, if you don’t want to pay a monthly fee, you’ll have to spend the time and gas to drop off these glass items at a collection site (no additional cost).
What is Boise Offerings To Encourage Business Recycling Efforts?
Boise offers their Curb It Commercial program – and, as they state, businesses account for less than 5% of city accounts while generating over 60% of the total waste! – for their Commercial (business) customers, including Apartment Complexes! Unfortunately, these costs can be quite high – running from $53.98 a month for a 3-yard container picked up once more week to a whopping $373.10 a month for an 8-yard container picked up five times per week. And, if a business wants to do a larger container, the pricing jumps an additional $137.35 per month. There are additional fees for lid locks, container delivery, cleanup if the containers are overfilled, and deposits to get started up. This can be a costly endeavor, especially if an apartment complex decides to offer this optional service to tenants, but under-purchase for their tenants needs. This may even lead some to ask the question: Is the cost even worth it?
Does Boise Offer Any Other Recycling Programs?
We’re glad you asked – check back with us soon where we’ll cover the Hefty EnergyBag program! In the meantime, please email us at COBEEthics@boisestate.edu with any recycling tips, tricks, questions, or stories you have to share!