Albuquerque Solid Waste Management Department

Ok so since I’m JUST visiting here, I won’t profess to know the pain of gathering & dropping off recyclables… But I get it, as I’ve done it myself in the past.
For the time that I’m here, this is my pleasure to show (don’t just say it) that I care about the future of man-​kind. So here goes nothing.
Biweekly, I rinse & recycle my plastic & paper waste & drive a couple miles away to recycle.
I appreciate the fact that the bins accept glass & other bulk paper/​plastic items; makes me all warm & fuzzy inside. 3 large properly labeled bins accommodate me & my recyclables. The bins are typically quite full whenever I go to deposit, way cool.
Glad to see locals also join in the recycling revelry… WooooHoop #GoGreen

I remember the day our big green bin showed up at our door. It was 1992, I was a sophomore in high school, and Minneapolis had launched its recycling program. Initially, the city asked everyone to separate the basics into individual bags: plastic, glass, aluminum, paper. But that quickly changed once the idea caught on that recycling really made a lot of sense, it was easy to do, and let’s not forget the whole planetary responsibility thing. The city developed large plants where people were paid fair wages to separate the goods, and the average Joe just put everything in the same big sidewalk can.
Mind you, this was in 1992.
One week ago today, a blue recycling bin was delivered to my sidewalk, some 10 months following the announcement that the curbside program had been instituted. I moved here in 1996. If you do the math, for the past 17 years I’ve taken all of my recycling materials to «centers» around the city, hauling the stuff on a weekly basis because I actually felt some kind of responsibility regarding the crap I consume. Poor, ignorant me. I once asked a local why we didn’t even recycle glass at the curb, he smiled and said, «Man, we have enough sand in this town already.»
So bravo, Berry administration, you’ve accomplished something the rest of the world figured out decades ago. Oh, and by the way, the curbside program still does NOT include glass (or plastic bags, apparently not recyclable, period), so I’ll be driving that across town for the foreseeable future. How does this make any sense?
What about yard waste? Well, over the years I’ve found myself driving across the city, fairly regularly, to drop dirt and leaves and wood and whatever at the dump, because the city doesn’t pick that up, either. What? Okay, not entirely true, as the website points out: «Curbside collection of green waste (yard waste) is offered free-​of-​charge two times per year.» That’s right folks, twice a year! So just pile up your green stuff somewhere on your lawn for the big day, six months from now, when you’ll be bagging the stuff into trash bags to set on your curb, and we all know that sticks and stumps conveniently fit in Hefty bags, right? By the way, most evolved municipalities also began providing green waste curbside bins for the citizenry about a decade back.
As far as this particular ABQ department goes, I wish I could be the Star Nazi: No stars for you!