New Single-Stream Recycling System

The City of Horseshoe Bay Reclamation Center utilized dual-stream recycling at its facility for many years. Dual-stream recycling required participants to separate their materials at home or their place of business before bringing them to the center. While the dual-stream system was somewhat effective, a newer system of recycling called single-stream recycling has become the new norm.

Single-stream recycling has several benefits and has taken the recycling community by storm. The process was introduced in the late 1990s in California and has since spread across the United States. The previous system required end-users to separate food and beverage containers into one bin and paper products into another bin. Collection trucks had multiple compartments to separate each type of recyclable material as well.

With the single-stream recycling system, users place all recyclable materials into a single bin. These bins are then collected by a truck with a single compartment and delivered to a materials recovery facility. At the materials recovery facility, workers sort the recyclable materials mechanically and by hand.

What This Means for Residents

Under the new single-stream system, Horseshoe Bay residents can now combine mixed paper items (newspaper, junk mail, cereal boxes, cardboard) and containers (aluminum and steel cans, glass jars and bottles, plastic bottles) into a single bin or bag without sorting them first. Please note, residents must still break down cardboard boxes prior to bringing them to the recycling center and styrofoam cannot be recycled. Find out more about what items can be recycled here.

When residents arrive at the center, they will see a new set-up. Residents should follow the arrows to the right, where they will see three lanes marked by orange cones. The first two leftmost lanes may be used to drop off recycling materials (the third, rightmost lane is for residents needing to drop off brush). Residents will see several blue “hoppers” in the center drop-off circle. The eight hoppers can all be used for single-stream recycling material.

Residents may use ANY BLUE HOPPER to drop off their recycling material, and dump all of their items into one bin. There is also one small green and yellow bin for plastic bags only in the center of the blue hoppers. We hope residents find the new set-up convenient and easy to use!

Place All Recycling Items in ANY Blue Hopper

Small Yellow and Green Bin is for Plastic Bags Only