City of Tampa Florida Recycles Too
Recycling And Waste Reduction
The Recycling Divisionis responsible for implementing, monitoring and administering the Department’s comprehensive recycling program. This includes curbside and multi-family recycling, office paper and commercial recycling programs.
NEW! “The City of Tampa is proud to partner with Habitat Hillsborough to encourage the community to reuse, recycle and repurpose by donating to or shopping at our ReStore.”
The Habitat for Humanity of Hillsborough County Florida, Inc. ReStore offers a wide variety of new and used building materials, appliances, cabinets, furniture, flooring, specialty items and much more at discount prices. All proceeds from our ReStore go directly to fund the mission of Habitat for Humanity of Hillsborough County.
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*Cardboard: Please make sure that cardboard is flattened and cut down to fit in blue bins (a maximum of 3 ft squares). If you have large quantities of cardboard, it may be dropped off, at no charge, at the McKay Bay Refuse-To-Energy Facility at 114 S. 34th Street, Tampa FL.
Recycle your old blue bins: Leave your cracked, broken blue bins curbside on your pick up day for collection (please leave a note on the bin stating that you would like it replaced). The old bins will be taken to the processing facility and recycled.
Recycling Drop Off Sites:
McKay Bay Refuse-To-Energy Facility at 114 S. 34th St. for recycling.
University of South Florida Recycling Center:
Located on the Corner of Elm and Sycamore behind the SunDome.
Cardboard, newspaper, aluminum, plastic and glass recycling.
In-School and Public Education Program
Recycling Fun Facts
- We throw away enough aluminum each year that we could rebuild our entire commercial air fleet every 3 months.
- We throw away enough office paper each year to build a 12 foot high wall of paper from New York to Los Angeles.
- We throw away enough plastic soda bottles each year to circle the earth four times.
- We throw away enough motor oil each year to fill 120 supertankers.
- We throw away 20 million tons of grass clippings, dead leaves and branches a year.
- An average size family’s yard waste can make about 300-400 pounds of finished compost (humus) a year!
Contacts:
Program Information:
Recycling Coordinator – Lori VanBemden
(813) 348-6504
Fax: (813) 348-1156
Recycling Specialist – Aleta Kane
(813) 348-1027
Email: [email protected]
Missed Pickups/Green Recycling Cart Requests:
Customer Service
(813) 274-8811
Extension 2
Commercial
Did you know that recycling office paper can eliminate 30-70% of your waste? By participating in your office recycling program, or starting one of your own, you can help save Earth’s most precious resource – the environment
Looking for recycling containers for your office or business? Check out our Recycling container directory to explore container options.
Waste Reduction Tips
- Double side photocopies. Not only does it save paper, but it also reduces mailing costs and condenses filing spaces.
- Buy recycled products. Look for products with recycled content and packaging.
- Place old office papers in a box marked “recycle” if you don’t have an individual recycling bin for your desk. Transfer those papers to the central recycling bin at the end of the day.
- Proof documents on your computer before printing.
- Share journals, magazines, newsletters and newspapers rather than having several copies. This will also reduce your subscription costs!
- Use coffee mugs instead of Styrofoam or paper cups.
- Create “scratch paper” and memo pads from old stationary.
- Remove obsolete names of you mailing lists regularly. It will save you the cost of printing and mailing unnecessary publications and letters.
What can we recycle?
IN:
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- White computer or printer paper.
- White stationary and notepads
- Magazines
- Index cards
- Manila file folders
- Plain envelopes
- Newspaper and inserts
- Junk mail (please remove cellophane windows)
- Phone books
- Cardboard * (Flattened and cut down into a max.of 3 ft squares if placed in 95-gallon rolling cart)
OUT:
- Paper ream wrappers
- Carbon Paper
- Food wrappers
- Waxed paper
Apartment Recycling in Tampa
Recycling services are available to apartments, condominiums, retirement communities and other residential developments. The City can help with implementation of recycling programs for cardboard, office paper, newspaper, aluminum, glass and plastic containers. Charges vary depending on the service and processing facility used. Call Customer Service at 813-348-1111 to find out more.
Recycling at Work
Businesses can do their part to recycle as well. The City can help with implementation of recycling programs for cardboard, office paper, newspaper, aluminum, glass and plastic containers. Charges vary depending on the service and processing facility used. Call Customer Service at 813-348-1111 to find out more.
Looking for recycling containers for your office or business? Check out our Recycling container directory to explore container options.
Tampa Bay Recycles
Tampa Bay Recycling Partnership Launches No Bags Campaign
Residents are the target of a regional effort to combat recycling confusion and contamination
The City of Tampa, Hillsborough County, Pinellas County, and City of St. Petersburg solid waste departments have partnered together to provide information to residents about a universal problem – plastic bags in recycling.
Curbside and residential recycling systems are only designed to process certain program items. Bagged recyclables aren’t recycled because they can’t be sorted by the recycling equipment. Plastic bags also tangle up in the sorting equipment, which causes equipment damage, creates health and safety hazards for workers, reduces the amount of recyclables that can be successfully recovered, and increases the overall cost of the recycling process.
The partner regional multimedia public education campaign launched April 17, just in time for Earth Day. A new bay-spanning video and co-branded webpage, TampaBayRecycles.org, provides information about why people need to keep recycling bag-free no matter where they recycle in the Tampa Bay area – home, work, public venues, or collection centers.
Utilizing reusable bags is more eco-friendly than getting disposable plastic bags when shopping. For those who use plastic bags and can’t return them to participating retailers for special recycling, the good news is that all four governments use Waste-to-Energy facilities for trash disposal – turning garbage into renewable electricity.
This is the first time all the county and city solid waste departments have worked together on a single regional campaign. Since people tend to live, work, and entertain throughout the region, not just within the city or county they live in, providing one simple consistent message will make it easier for residents to understand recycling rules and will, hopefully, translate to behavior change to reduce contamination in the regional recycling stream.