Recycling Saves Bedford Money

Bedford Town Manager Jessie W. Levine blogged last week about the Town Council's goal to increase the recycling rate by 10 percent in 2013. One way to achieve that goal, Transfer Station Foreman Jerome Spooner says, is focusing on recycling more paper and cardboard.

"It's definitely doable," he told Patch in an interview Friday.

Bedford, which has single-stream recycling since 2008, would save an estimated $10,000 by increasing the recycling rate by 10 percent, according to Levine's blog post.

She said last year the town spent more than $541,000 to process approximately 7,600 tons of solid waste and about $25,000 to process 1,400 tons of recycling (so the cost per ton is $74 for solid waste and less than $20 for recyclables).

Here is the town transfer station's web page, including its list of what can be recycled.