Climate Adaptation
The Future of Recycling Is Sanitation Workers Rejecting Your Bin
In Atlanta and other cities, collectors refuse to pick up trash if residents have sorted it wrong.
A recycling inspector in Atlanta takes pictures of items that don’t belong in the pail.
Photographer: Johnathon Kelso for Bloomberg GreenThis article is for subscribers only.
The early morning sky above Atlanta is still black, but a team of recycling inspectors is up and moving along Nacoochee Drive ruthlessly assessing the discarding habits of the residents.
The team gingerly tips one of the 96-gallon blue recycling pails placed curbside and eyeballs its contents. There’s folded cardboard, a few aluminum soda cans, and several empty milk jugs, but also a plastic bread bag and a ripped-open packet for mozzarella sticks. The team makes an instant call: reject.