Huntsville is a city that has always had a positive future outlook. Rated number 18 out 50 of the greenest cities in the United States by Popular Science in 2008, Huntsville is known for having an environmentally conscious outlook. While Huntsville may be well rated, there are many areas where the city fails to meet its proposed objectives. While there is much talk of a greener, more sustainable community, Huntsville has fallen short in the most basic area of sustainable community development: recycling. Since its implementation in the early 1990s, Huntsville’s curbside recycling program has stagnated and declined. With the growing emphasis on sustainability in the United States and Huntsville’s goal to become a greener city, it’s time to start with the basics and expand our curbside recycling program. Cities such as Portland OR, Nashville TN, and Lexington KY have curbside pickup of a myriad of recyclable materials, including: #1-7 plastics, plastic tubs and yogurt containers, corrugated cardboard, cereal boxes, paper bags, office paper, junk mail, envelopes, aluminum foil, scrap metal, and glass. If Huntsville is to reach its goals of becoming a more environmentally friendly city, we must expand our curbside recycling to include these materials. Currently, the only way to recycle many of these materials is to bring them to a drop site that is inconvenient to most Huntsville residents. As Huntsville citizens we petition the city of Huntsville to expand our curbside recycling program to include the above materials to create a greener, more sustainable community.

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