Turlington coupon books will no longer need to be thrown in the trash.
Instead, they can be recycled into bags to hold groceries as part of a new initiative to make Alachua County greener.
On Monday, Alachua County Waste Management announced new items for the county’s curbside recycling program.
The additions include paperback items, such as books and school workbooks, that can be disposed into county-provided orange bins.
Gable top cartons, used to hold juices and milks, and aseptic cartons, which hold nonrefrigerated liquids, can now be placed in blue bins for plastics, according to a waste management press release.
Residents can start recycling these items immediately through the curbside program or at rural collection centers.
Milton Towns, a waste collection manager for Alachua County Public Works Waste Management Division, said the county worked with the curbside recycling program, the SP Recycling Southeast LLC and WCA Waste Corporation to expand the recyclable items accepted for waste collection.
“We try to look at what kind of items in our garbage we can pull out rather easily,” he said.
All the new recyclable items will contribute to other paper products such as grocery bags and rolled paper, Towns said.
The programs worked with processors and the Carton Council for about a year to find a stable market to send the gable top and aseptic cartons. New processes in the production of paperback books lead to the addition of those items, he said.
