2-04-2025 4:48am

County Program To

Department Of Public Works And Transportation Launches Pilot Program To Increase Recycling In Multi-Family Housing Communities

TOWSON – With a new year comes New Year’s resolutions, and the Baltimore County Department of Public Works and Transportation (DPWT) is working to help residents include recycling more as a goal for 2025. As part of this effort, DPWT has initiated a pilot program to promote recycling and reduce contamination in recycling among residents of multi-family housing communities.

The department collaborated with property managers to educate residents about the recycling in general. This outreach involved providing residents with information about the county’s recycling guidelines and reminders about which materials can and cannot be recycled.

“This is another way to reach out to the residents of Baltimore County and helping to better educate them about recycling,” said Nicholas Rodricks, DPWT’s Chief of the Bureau of Solid Waste. “This pilot program helps us overcome some of the operational hurdles of recycling in multi-family housing communities. Not everyone has the ability to simply place their recyclables in a bin and wheel it out to the curb. This program allows us to meet people where they are and improve recycling in Baltimore County.”

The program, conducted by the Department’s Bureau of Solid Waste, launched with an initial focus of 410 units in the Twin Ridge Apartment complex in Pikesville. The program quickly expanded to include Carriage Hill Apartments (805 units) in Randallstown, Gwynn Oaks Apartments (889 units) in Windsor Mill and Morningside Apartments (1,050 units) in Owings Mills. As part of the program, DPWT installed oversized educational decals on all of the community’s recycling dumpsters and distributed reusable recycling tote bags to community residents.

DPWT launched the program, funded through the Bureau of Solid Waste, following a county study last year, which revealed that residents in multi-family home communities were less satisfied with trash and recycling collection services, felt they lacked space to store recyclables, and had limited access to drop off their recyclables compared to those living in single-family homes.

“We’ve always had recycling, but it was always in the background,” said Kristen Centeno, assistant property manager, Twin Ridge Apartments. “When Baltimore County approached us about this program and we announced it to our community, there was a renewed and increased interest in recycling. We’ve had such a great response that we are adding on an additional day of recycling pick-ups.”

As part of the program, DPWT plans to eventually expand the effort to include 10 multi-family home communities, totaling over 10,000 units. Along with working to increase recycling and reduce the rate of contaminated recycling material collected from these communities, the program also has the goal of helping prolong the life of the Eastern Sanitary Landfill in White Marsh, the only active landfill in the county.

The Bureau of Solid Waste collects residential materials from approximately 243,000 single-family homes and 82,000 multi-family units. The Bureau handles nearly 1 million tons of trash or recyclables annually from Baltimore County and Harford County. The county also processes over 75,000 tons of recyclable material through the Central Acceptance Facility in Cockeysville.

Here is a general guide to what residents should and should not send out for their single-stream recycling in Baltimore County:

Recycle These Items