Chapel Hill to gain 13 new streetside recycling bins

Starting as early as this fall, students and town residents looking for a place to recycle their bottles and cans on Franklin Street will have more options.

At a Monday night meeting, the Chapel Hill Town Council accepted a $13,062 grant from the N.C. Department of Environment and Natural Resources.

The town will use the Community Waste Reduction and Recycling grant to install 13 sidewalk recycling bins alongside trash cans on Franklin Street.

Recycling bins will also be installed in Southern Village.

The bins will be used for cans, bottles, plastic and glass and will be located near bus stops, crosswalks and curbsides for efficiency.

The project, which will cost $15,675, could be completed as soon as this Thanksgiving, said Emily Cameron, a landscape architect for the town.

The grant requires Chapel Hill to pay for 20 percent of the total cost of the program, which will amount to $2,613. The town will also pay $1,770 per year to have downtown recycling bins emptied weekly, plus $700 to service Southern Village.

It will also pay $481 once a year to service parks.

Michael Lees, a freshman, said he supports the town’s effort to increase recycling and thinks it will be effective.

“Most people are down to recycle,” he said. “It’s just how convenient it is.”

Cameron said the bins, designed to accommodate pedestrians, will have side openings to differentiate them from nearby trash cans.

The purpose of the grant, which the Public Works Department applied for last April, is to help local governments expand and implement waste reduction and recycling programs.

Rob Taylor, environmental senior specialist at N.C. DENR, said the agency wanted to fund a project to increase public waste- reduction awareness.

Criteria for the grant included innovation, sustainability, trash reduction and efficiency.

Taylor said 43 other communities were awarded similar grant money.

Blair Pollock, solid waste planner at the Orange County Solid Waste Management Department — which manages the town’s recycling program — said the county would like to make recycling part of everyday life, but sometimes people don’t know where to find bins.

“Unless it’s convenient for people, they’re not always going to (recycle),” Pollock said.

Libby Rodenbough, a sophomore, said she thinks the new bins are a good idea but is unsure of how big of an impact it will make on people’s recycling habits.

“I think it will make some difference,” she said.

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