CITY OF BLOOMINGTON

SANITATION

October 10, 2019

Dear City Resident,

Sanitation crews have recently discovered a large number of items being placed into recycling carts
that are not recyclable. The City of Bloomington offers single-stream recycling, which means that
all the recyclable materials that are collected in your carts are separated out at a Material Recovery
Facility (MRF). If non-recyclable materials are processed at the MRF, it can cause all of the
collected recycling items to become contaminated. If this happens, the MRF will instead divert large
amounts of recyclable items to the landfill, where it is disposed with trash and not reused.

In order to avoid contaminating your recyclables, please refrain from depositing the following items
in your recycling containers:

 Diapers
 Cat litter
 Personal hygiene products (including prophylactics)
 Styrofoam of any kind
 Furnace filters
 Yard waste, dirt or debris
 Wood or lumber
 Household cleaning products, paint and any other hazardous materials
 Food grade cardboard (such as pizza boxes)
 Food waste
 Clothing material of any type

Please ensure that all your recyclable materials are approved items, clean and free of food debris.
Recycling that is contaminated will not be collected in the upcoming weeks. If your container has
contaminated items in them, crews will place a sticker on it indicating why it was not collected.

Thank you for your help and attention to this matter. If you have questions, please call (812) 349-
3443, or e-mail sanitation@ bloomington.in.gov. Please visit the Sanitation website for more
information about acceptable recyclable items at https://bloomington.in.gov/sanitation/recycling.

Thank you,

City of Bloomington Sanitation Division