No-sort curbside recycling
Launch the media gallery 1 player(Update: August 2019)
Since 2008, the City of Crete has made recycling available to residents with service provided by The Garbage Company, which is also the city’s refuse hauler. Recycling collection is included in the city’s garbage collection rate on utility bills.
Residents are provided a wheeled tote to be used specifically for the single stream, or no-sort recycling program. No-sort is just that, residents are not required to separate recyclable items including aluminum, paper, plastic, cardboard or glass, and are able to put everything in the tote for weekly collection.
The steps to recycle are simple: 1) rinse or clean out any plastic or glass containers and place them in the tote and break down large, clean cardboard boxes; 2) on the night before or morning of collection day, place large cardboard pieces under the tote at the curb or alley away from any obstacles such as posts or vehicles; 3) after collection, store the tote next to the residence or away from the curb or alley until the next collection day.
A variety of materials can be recycled in Crete, including:
- aluminum and tin: aluminum and tin cans, formed aluminum containers (example: disposable pie plates) and clean aluminum foil;
- paper: newspaper (including advertising supplements), magazines, brown grocery bags, telephone books, catalogs, office paper, junk mail, envelopes; empty chipboard (cereal boxes), wet strength carrier stock (TV dinner boxes).
- cardboard: place clean corrugated cardboard boxes or shipping boxes under toter; break down or cut boxes so they are flat and no bigger than 2 by 2 feet;
- plastic: numbers 1 - 7 plastic containers (numbers are located on bottom of container): soda/water/juice bottles, milk bottles, butter tubs, sour cream carton, dip containers, detergent/bleach bottles, household cleaner bottles etc.
Items not accepted include styrofoam, rubber bands, soiled paper (pizza boxes/sandwich wrappers), food, tissue paper, paper towels, wax coated paper, shrink-wrap, plastic bags, wood or glass. (Update August 2019: glass is not accepted.)
Two recycling routes are currently used by The Garbage Company in Crete. Monday includes the areas south of 13th Street excluding Lothrop Heights and Westwoods Addition. Thursday includes areas north of 13th Street including Lothrop Heights and Westwoods.
The Transfer Station on North Boswell accepts recyclable items with flat rates based on the amount of materials.