The City of New Bedford says they have seen a 95% increase in recycling as compared to this time last year.

Marissa Perez-Dormitzer, District Recycling Coordinator, Greater New Bedford Regional Refuse Management District says the single stream recycling process saves people the difficulty of having to sort recycled items, making their participation more likely.

She also increase is due in part to residents finding that more items can be recycled than they may have originally realized.

"We receive questions everyday in our office about all kinds of items," said Perez-Dormitzer, "people ask us about lottery tickets, pudding boxes, spaghetti sauce jars, different kinds of things that they may not have thought about before as being recyclable."

This increase has also lead to a roughly 30% decrease in items headed for the Crapo Hill Landfill, according to data submitted to the Massachusetts Department of Environmental Protection.

While encouraged by these numbers Perez-Dormitzer says there's still room for improvement.

"Almost always we still see recyclables in the trash, so items that could have been recycled still go in the trash," said Perez-Dormitzer "and I know everyone's busy in their day to day lives and so it's easy to miss something like that, but I believe there is still room to increase our recycling."

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