Plastic and Metal Recycling arrives at Village Pointe

We are excited to announce the new recycling bins provided by grant from the Nebraska Recycling Council funded by the Nebraska Environmental Trust have come in and are in place at Village Pointe.

• Tall or short green bins for mixed plastic and metal
  • Both of these bins will hold both metal and plastic, comingled.  The plastic that goes in must be rigid—the number doesn’t matter, but the plastic must hold its own shape.  e.g. pop bottles, plastic trays, frozen lunch plates, yogurt cups can all go in.  Plastic bags, saran wrap, cellophane, bubble wrap cannot.
  • Items need to be emptied of food and liquid prior to placing them in the bin but they don’t need to be super clean.  Not every bit of food needs to be out or off, but the bulk should be removed—you can use the napkin you ate with to get the excess out and call it good.
  • Clean patient care/work-related items can go in the bin as well.  Examples include saline bottles, plastic jugs, etc.  Tubing, items that have had patient fluids on them (even if they normally go in the trash), or items that look like medical waste cannot be placed in the containers.  If you are not sure if it looks like medical waste, please consider it trash until you confirm with LiveGreen@unmc.edu
• Lobbies have stainless steel “triple bins”.  They are all attached as one unit, but have 3 distinct bins: paper/locked/slot opening, landfill/square opening, mixed plastic and metal/round opening.

The bins must stay in the location they are placed in.  We worked with colleagues in the space to determine where bins were needed and then found a location that meets code.  If there is an issue with a bin location and you want to relocate it, please email LiveGreen@unmc.edu so I can verify the new location is acceptable.

If you see your Environmental Services workers, please thank them!  This is a big change for them and they now have more containers/more work to do.  They have willingly taken this on and are happy to help recycle!  Also know that recycling bins aren’t emptied until they are ¾ full.  This helps with efficiency but also decreases the number of plastic bags we have to use, an unfortunate side effect of recycling.

Thank you for your help in bringing recycling to Village Pointe and for your patience while we got the bins and service added there!  We know other locations are recycling on their own and would like to see this change too.  We are working on it and thank you for all your recycling efforts and patience.