The DPW Hosts a More Sustainable Event
Submitted by Gretchen Carey, Bedford’s DPW Recycling Coordinator
On Saturday, May 31 from 9 am-12 noon the Department of Public Works will be hosting its semi-annual recycling drop off day… but one step greener this year. This event will have three collection vendors: ReFoamIt for Styrofoam collection, Excel Recycles for scrap metal collection, and Doc Shredding for paper shredding. (Please note that this will be May 31st– we wanted to give residents time to collect their recyclables!)
In the past, the vendors for paper shredding have brought large trucks that ran for three hours, chewing up the paper on site. This creates hours of emissions, and uses a great deal of fuel. This year, we are going to take the more eco-friendly option to have a non-shredding truck come to our site to pick up residential paper. Each resident would get a guaranteed certificate of destruction, and watch their paper get loaded into the truck. At the end of the day the loaded truck goes back to the full security Doc Shredding facility, where the paper is then shredded with energy created from solar power.
Due to concerns about security, we chose a successful paper shredding company with a history of high profile customers. Doc Shredding regularly works with Federal and State agencies that require certifications and auditing. Feel free to look through their list of references, which include the Department of Homeland Security, the Social Security Administration, and the Framingham division of the U.S. Army. Their website also includes the do’s and don’t’s of paper recycling at www.docshreddingcorp.com
If you are considering bringing Styrofoam to this event, please spend a moment looking over the ReFoamIt website:they take specific types of extruded foam, but not all types. At www.ReFoamIt.com , just click on “What can be Recycled”. Now is the time to start purging your attic of big foam blocks, saving up your meat trays, and rinsing and stacking your coffee cups! Just remember that everything needs to be clean.
If you are looking around your garage and wondering what we accept for scrap metal, check the list here: https://excelrecycle.com/ on the left you will find pages for “What we buy” and “What we don’t buy”.
More information will be available for the entire event as we get closer to the May date. Write to [email protected] with questions or comments.
Once again this year we would like to Allied Waste/Republic Services for sponsoring this DPW event!
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