commingle(d) = 'stuff to recycle'

[Victor Steinbok]

  I hope that's not entirely what's going on in Philadelphia. Most
Boston suburban towns have had recycling by type of recyclable since the
early 1990s. Sometime later (before 2000), many started gathering all
recyclables except newsprint and cardboard in a single bin, usually
labeled "Commingle" or "Commingles".  (But not all--some suburbs and, I
believe, Boston proper , still collect separately.) I've heard some
locals refer to the recyclables as "commingables". But paper/cardboard
are not a part of that, nor are non-can metals, liquids (motor oil,
battery acid), mercury-laden batteries, etc. It's basically a single bin
for glass, plastic, drink cans and food cans. Different locations have
different plastic collected--some go 1-4, others 1-6. This is quite
different from what they used to do, which was sort all plastic and
metal cans separately (aluminum separate from "tin"), and glass
separated by color. In Europe, glass is still separated by color.

     VS-)

On 7/18/2010 10:02 PM, Mark Mandel wrote:
> For a number of years Philadelphia has provided curbside pickup of
> recyclable materials. In the past couple of years the city has been making
> it easier to recycle stuff, instead of throwing it in with the trash, by
> allowing waste paper, plastics, glass, and metal cans to be put out in a
> single container instead of separately. And since they are phasing in this
> "commingled" pickup neighborhood by neighborhood, there's an ongoing trickle
> of announcements about it. (Ours was one of the first, and I forget which
> types formerly could not be mixed.)
>
> Here are a few examples, from "about 26,000" raw Google hits on the search
>    commingle* philadelphia recycl*
>
> =====
> City of Philadelphia official document, p. 8, along with other paragraphs on
> sanitation and recycling:
> http://mbec.phila.gov/procurement/bids/S1YL66903AD.PDF
>   16. Can the City provide an example of how the Average Market Price Formula
> and Base Rate Index is applied?
>   Answer: The Commingled Container index is added to the Newspaper, Mixed
> Paper and Cardboard index and the sum is multiplied by 75%. An example for
> how this value is applied is provided in Section 2.14.2.
>
> University of Pennsylvania:
> http://www.upenn.edu/sustainability/recyclemania.html
> The Climate Action Plan calls on the University to reduce its overall waste
> stream and increase its diversion rate of paper, cardboard, and commingled
> (glass, plastic #1 and #2, and metal) recyclables to 40 percent by 2014.
>
> Vermont Public Radio. (Google's cached snippet has "commingle", but the live
> page has "co-mingle".)
> http://www.vpr.net/npr/92913195/
> On a recent Friday morning, Arlington's environmental programs manager, Mike
> Clem, showed up at my house to observe my recycling habits. Every week, I
> put all the plastic, metal and glass in a yellow bin. Then I put all the
> paper products out at the curb in paper bags. Clem tells me I can put junk
> mail, even envelopes with windows, cereal boxes and newspapers, all in one
> bag.
>      It turns out there's a name for this system of recycling. It's called
> dual stream. Put all the paper products in one place, then co-mingle all the
> rest. Co-mingle is recycle-speak for "throw everything else together."
> =====
>
> Note that the first quotation uses "commingled" as a noun, with "Commingled
> Container index" in parallel with "Newspaper, Mixed Paper and Cardboard
> index".
>
> Walking around my neighborhood, the Penn campus, and in between, I see
> "commingle"* used as a noun, on (often handwritten) signs and stenciled on
> dumpsters, as in
>
>      NO TRASH
> COMMINGLE ONLY
>
> * Or possibly "commingled". I haven't paid attention, but may try to do so
> in the next few weeks.
>
> My guess is that the people who put up such notices haven't encountered this
> infrequent word before its use in this program, and that they have not
> unreasonably inferred from context that "commingle(d)" means "mixed
> recyclable materials", as opposed to "trash (that is not for recycling)".
> Cf. "transistor [radio]", if you remember that far back.
>
> m a m
>

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