Remember this holiday season to recycle your old, broken, and unwanted electrical appliances by dropping them off at any of Baltimore’s five citizen drop off locations.  You may be helping to support jobs for workers with physical or mental challenges.

Baltimore’s new electronics recycling vendor – CyclePoint from SourceAmerica – creates sustainable jobs for people with significant disabilities. These workers help process recycled electronics for reuse in new products. So there’s an additional benefit to recycling electronics even beyond being good for the environment, conserving resources, and saving space in landfills.

If your old items still work, consider donating them so they can be used again. The unusable items – including televisions, computers, monitors and cellphones – can be e-cycled. For a complete list of drop off locations and electronics that we accept, visit publicworks.baltimorecity.gov/recycling-services.

Recycle Christmas wrapping

Baltimore City Department of Public Works reminds citizens to give a gift to the environment by recycling holiday wrapping material and buying recycled gifts. 

During the holidays, citizens produce more trash than usual as they receive and give gifts, and wrap presents for others.  Always reuse or recycle unwanted gift bags and boxes, holiday cards and paper.  These items are collected curbside on your normal recycling collection day.

Metallic and glittery wrapping paper, bows, ribbons and Christmas ornaments are not recyclable.  Instead, save them for re-use or donate them.  Otherwise they should be thrown in with the trash.  Styrofoam packaging can be recycled by drop off at DPW’s Northwest Citizens’ Convenience Center, 2840 Sisson Street.

When shopping, be sure to use reusable bags and reduce gift-giving waste by giving items that require little packaging, like movie tickets, or experiences like a dinner date.  Send electronic greeting cards to reduce paper waste. Buying and giving items made from recycled materials encourages manufacturers to make more recycled products available.

To learn more or for a complete list of items to recycle, visit us on the web at publicworks.baltimorecity.gov.