The Downtown Auburn BID would like to introduce its newest program, Recycle Downtown! Recycling is important in this day and age to any community, that is why the Downtown Auburn Business Improvement District (BID) is working with the City of Auburn to encourage all the BID businesses to recycle on trash day to help reduce what goes into the waste stream.

The guidelines for recycling in downtown Auburn are quite simple. Recyclable items must be put out on the corresponding weeks according to the City of Auburn's streamline schedule. These schedules can be found on the city's Web site at http://auburnny.virtualtownhall.net/Public Documents/AuburnNY Utilities/collection schedule or by calling Solid Waste Management at 252-6441 or you can pick up a copy at the BID office. We also have it in pdf format.

If your business produces a great deal of recyclable waste and you need to dispose of it sooner than every five weeks, you can bring it to the city dump free of charge during the hours of 7 a.m. to 3 p.m. Monday through Saturday.

The following are the items that can be recycled by downtown businesses: plastic, glass, metal, cardboard and newspapers. Taking these items out of the waste stream greatly reduces the amount of garbage that needs to be put out each week and creates less of a strain on our landfill.

Cardboard is the newest addition to the recycle stream in Auburn. The guidelines for recycling cardboard are as follows:

- It must be flattened

- Corrugated boxes, paper grocery bags, boxes such as cereal, cracker, cake mixes, pasta, shoe and tissue boxes and paper egg cartons can be recycled

- Wax or paper coated boxes, plastic liners, leftover food, boxes from wet food, such as ice cream, frozen food or plastic bags can not be recycled

In an effort to recognize those who actively try to recycle and continually put out garbage for pickup in the correct manner, the BID will be issuing a Recycle Downtown! award at our annual “State of Downtown” luncheon starting in July 2007.

If you are interested in more information on recycling in downtown Auburn, please call the BID office at 252-7874 or the Solid Waste Department at 252-6441.

Garbage cans that are on-street are not to be used by businesses disposing of their garbage. The garbage cans are not big enough to handle that much waste and it creates a severe problem with trash blowing around in the downtown area.

The downtown Auburn BID does have a beautification crew member to keep up on the garbage cans, but if he finds garbage from businesses or elsewhere, he will turn in the bags to the landfill so that a letter can be sent.

If you would like to take part in the BID's Recycle Downtown! Campaign, please give us a call at 252-7874 and we will add you to our list of participants and provide you with an identifying poster.

Keep downtown Auburn beautiful, RECYCLE!

Sandra Craner is executive director of the Downtown Auburn BID; Sandra can be

reached at 252-7874