REFUSE & RECYCLINGYou Recycle . . . Then What ?Household Hazardous Waste Events |
New Year’s Day Fourth of July Thanksgiving
Memorial Day Labor Day Christmas
64-gallon recycling carts are available upon request for Walled Lake curbside recycling customers.
Contact Priority Waste at (586) 228-1200
(Additional $3 monthly fee per cart applies)
Refuse pickup is on Wednesdays, please have trash out to the curb by 5:30 a.m.
For any questions or missed trashed, please contact Priority Waste (586) 228-1200 or visit website: prioritywaste.com
Yard Waste
- On your regular garbage pick up day, place grass clippings, leaves, twigs and any other yard waste in brown paper yard waste bags or in a container clearly marked "Yard Waste". Items not accepted as yard waste are the following: Straw, hay, yard waste mixed with trash, apples, logs, tree stumps, dirt, rocks, sod or yard waste in plastic bags.
- The City's refuse hauler will also pick up branches if they are less than two (2) inches in diameter and are bundled in four (4) foot lengths. Brush bundles should not exceed forty (40) pounds.
- Yard waste season begins the first Wednesday in April and runs through the last Wednesday in November.
HOW THE MRF WORKS
- Recycling trucks arrive at the MRF after picking up recyclables from in front of your home, a drop-off center or business. They are weighed so we know who is recycling how much of what.
- Trucks then dump mixed containers (glass, plastic, cans, aluminum foil, and pie tins) on one side of the building and paper (newspaper, magazines, box board, and cardboard) on the other. There are two sorting lines: One (1) for containers and one (1) for paper.
- Bucket loaders push the mixed containers into a pit for the in-feed conveyor belt. The conveyor belt moves the containers into a line of machines affectionately referred to as "Charlotte's Web" because the system is so intricate.
- Employees remove any non-recyclable materials (contaminants) mistakenly included with the recyclables.
- Containers then pass through a spinning cylinder with holes in it called a trommel screen. Any glass that is small enough to fall through the holes, goes into a roll-off box and is shipped as "mixed" glass.
- Then a magnetic system pulls out steel, tin and bi-metal cans. They are stored in a giant cage until they are baled. A blower sends all of the plastic, aluminum foil and pie tins onto a conveyor belt that travels into a sorting room. There, people sort the different types of plastic and aluminum by hand into huge cages for storage.
- The only material left on the conveyor belt is glass that was too big to fall through the holes of the trommel screen. Employees sort the glass by hand according to color. The glass is shipped, by color, to glass recyclers. The giant plastic and metal storage cages are opened one at a time, from the bottom. Recyclables spill out into a conveyor belt that travels directly to one of the two balers in the MRF.
- Paper is not paper! Although most paper arrives mixed together, it leaved the MRF sorted by paper type. Your newspaper and coupons stay together and are baled and shipped to a paper mill for recycling. Your magazines are sorted by hand and shipped to a different paper mill. Your cereal-type boxes (box board) are sorted from all the rest of your paper and recycled at yet another paper mill. Your corrugated boxes (the kind a new fridge comes in) are sorted from the rest and recycled separately, as well.
- Office paper collected at drop-offs and from businesses is dumped on the floor, baled and shipped for recycling, separate from all other paper.
- Once baled, recyclables are stacked near the loading dock to await shipping. Bales of recyclables material are loaded into semi-trailers. Trucks are weighed, so they are not too heavy to be on the road as they travel to "market." Material is shipped to paper mills, plastic or glass recycler and metal foundries.
RRRASOC
Updated Recycling Guidelines: Guidelines
Drop-Off sites: Drop-Off Locations
Simple Recycling: Simple Recycling