The City of Lakeland wants your help cleaning up the city’s recycling program. But first, let’s go through the numbers:

650 to 720 tons. The amount of materials Lakeland recycles per month.
4+ million lbs. What that tonnage equates to – or 400 elephants, for a visual reference.
16 million lbs. The amount in recyclable materials the City collected last year alone.

While all those are impressive numbers – it seems like we’re recycling a lot as a city – there is a big issue with contamination during the recycling process. In this case, contamination is when people try to recycle things that aren’t actually recyclable, and those things end up in a recycling facility. The biggest source of contamination in Lakeland is plastic bags, plastic wrap + other plastic films.

With each contaminate that gets caught in the recycling machinery, the equipment has to be completely shut down for workers to cut it free + remove it. This can occur up to four times a day.

So – are you contributing to the contamination problem? Do you know what can + can’t be recycled? And how often do you roll your cart out to the curb?

Those are a few questions the City wants to hear from you on through this survey, open now until March 31, in an effort to minimize contamination and keep our city clean.

Click here or take the survey. Bonus: You’ll be entered to win one of three gift cards for your good citizenship.

This content was created in partnership with the City of Lakeland. Ⓟ