The Daily Tar Heel
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The Daily Tar Heel

Orange County should follow through on the recent proposals from Orange County Waste Management that would improve the recycling experience for rural residents.

These proposals include improving solid waste convenience centers for county residents, providing education and outreach programs and switching to 95-gallon roll carts.

These new roll carts would provide rural residents with more room for larger recyclables like cardboard, creating space to recycle more things in one container, making it more likely that people would recycle.

Although the county would initially need to instate a new tax to pay for these new roll carts, after they are paid off, taxes would return to their initial rate, making the new carts a one-time investment that would last a long time.

In a study by the Environmental Protection Agency, residents with bigger recycling bins were found to recycle more than those who were provided with smaller bins or no bins at all.

Having a team from Waste Management go into these convenience centers to educate residents on what they can recycle would likely increase recycling rates as well.

A study by Michigan State University suggests that spending only a dollar per resident on educational programs will increase recycling rates by about 2 percent.

Orange County should take this opportunity to increase the number of residents that consistently participate in county recycling efforts.

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