The City of Manteca is giving everyone a little more time to adjust their recycling habits.

Due to the need to order more carts for change outs to larger carts, Solid Waste Division Manager Rexie LeStrange has indicated the city won’t likely crackdown on blue carts for compliance until June.

Since mid-December, 1,000 — or about 1/23rd of all residential customers that aren’t apartment complexes — have been switched to larger garbage carts. There is a waiting list of 600 households.

Manteca has ordered more carts.

“We are not asking people to be in compliance until we get the changes completed,” LeStrange noted. “(It would) not be fair to those who have to wait.”

Based on the current directive by City Manager Tim Ogden, households have until mid-March to request a change to a larger cart and avoid the $51.78 change out fee. 

Some people who have switched to a larger cart — especially those going from the 32 gallon to 64 gallon — have commented how much easier it is to put garbage in the cart.

Many, but not all of the smaller cart customers, even before the recycling changes had been cramming garbage into the 32-gallon cart to the point that they sometimes won’t empty when they are tipped by solid waste collection crews

For those Manteca Bulletin readers that can still get everything into their existing cart including things they could formerly recycle but can’t quite get newspapers to fit that the city is no longer able to recycle, you can drop them by the Bulletin’s Button Avenue production facility and they will be recycled. Not only will that free up space in your brown cart but the newspapers will get recycled. 

Manteca’s new recycling rules have banished newspapers along with magazines, all other paper, paper board boxes such as what cereal and shoes come in, and glass from the blue carts allowing only clean corrugated cardboard, California Redemption Value (CRV) containers, tin cans and No. 1 and No. 2 plastics  to be placed in the recycling container.

That has frustrated a lot of people who for decades have faithfully recycled newspapers.

The Bulletin is printed on recycled newspaper and we also work with a company that recycles newspaper.

Firms won’t take newspapers that the city collects any longer because they are mixed with other paper products that render it worthless.

You can call the Bulletin during normal business hours at 209.249.3500 for details on where to take your newspapers.

Keep in mind you will need to drop them off and only newspaper will be accepted. We will accept not just the Bulletin but any other newspaper you subscribe to for recycling.

 To go from a small to medium cart would be an additional $1.80 a month and from the medium to large is $1.69 a month. 

Change out forms can be filled out at the finance department at the Civic Center or solid waste division office on Wetmore Street during normal business hours. Solid waste closes several hours earlier at 3 p.m.

Accident a day

along 120 Bypass

The frequency of Manteca Fire Department units responding to accident calls on the 120 Bypass as well as segments of Highway 99 that are near the Bypass interchange are now at about one a day.

Fortunately accidents lately — while not all exactly fender benders given the damage to vehicles — have not resulted in deaths or major injuries. The rate of accidents in recent years has been steadily climbing.

In a recent eight year stretch there were 1,700 accidents, 900 injuries and 17 deaths on the 120 Bypass. That numbers does not include low-level fender benders or collisions on Highway 99 related to the 120 Bypass operational issues that backs up traffic and triggers sudden slowdowns.

To contact Dennis Wyatt, email dwyatt@mantecabulletin.com