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Politics & Government

County Recycling Program Collects All-Time High

The single-stream program collected more than 51,000 tons of material in 2011.

Baltimore county's single-stream recycling program collected more than 51,000 tons of material during 2011, the most recyclables ever collected by the county, county executive Kevin Kamenetz announced this morning at AMG Resource’s steel recycling facility in Dundalk.

That amount is 42 percent higher than the amount collected in 2009 when the county had a one-and-one schedule, where recycled paper was collected one week, while bottles, cans and plastics were collected the next, Kamenetz said.

Kamenetz said while the single-stream program is less efficient than the one-and-one program due to loss of certain materials due to contamination, it is much more convenient for the county residents and the major reason for the large jump in recycled materials.

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“We made it easier for the people of Baltimore County to recycle, and they responded in a big way,” Kamenetz said. “Currently it costs 56 dollars a ton to dispose of trash in the traditional way. By diverting these materials to recycling instead we saved almost $3 million.”

Kamenetz also awarded a AMG a citation recognizing the companies 50th anniversary. AMG processes approximately 1,000 tons of of material a month, removing the steel from tin cans and shipping it to RG Steel's Sparrows Point Steel Mill where it gets made into rolled steel.

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