RecycleSmart is now available in Pottsville!

Together Pottsville recently had to close the Recycle Hub at the Pottsville Community Garden after TerraCycle discontinued many of the programs we rely on. We’re deeply grateful to the Pottsville Community Garden and the Men’s Shed for generously offering us the space and constructing a lovely shed to house the hub.

In place of the Recycle Hub, we’re excited to share that RecycleSmart is now available in Tweed East—including Pottsville! For just $15 per month, RecycleSmart collects hard‑to‑recycle items such as soft plastics, oral‑care products, skincare containers and bottle caps 🙏. As long as items are clean and dry, they’ll pick them up. Check the full list of accepted materials on the on their website.

How it works

Sign up

To sign up, I went to RecycleSmart.com and selected whether I was an individual or business.

There are three choices to select from: Starter Pack, Monthly Plan and One time pick up. I selected Starter Pack, which is $19 for the first month. This includes your first pick up and 2 RecycleSmart bags. If you have existing shopping bags (like those green Woolies ones) you can use those too and save the extra $4.

I signed up and paid up front. Subsequent pick ups are $15/month and I can skip a monthly pick up if needed.

Filling up my bags

My bags arrived within a week and I was notified of when my first pick up was (approx 2-3 weeks after receiving the bags).

Jazzy pink bags from RecycleSmart.

I got to work filling them up. If you are anything like me, I had a stock pile of hard to recycle items in my garage, including a giant bag of soft plastics that I was collecting for REDcycle (now defunct in our area) and a big box of bottle caps I collected from the Recycle Hub (RIP).

I managed to squish that giant bag of soft plastics into one of the pink bags, along with some skin care items, empty toothpaste tubes, blister packs, half the box of bottle caps and countless empty chip bags.* RecycleSmart recommends you keep your soft plastic bags separate to other items like clothes, and putting your small items on top (see source).

If you have way more items to be picked up, you can increase the size of your pick up to medium or large for a surcharge. Their app has a snazzy tool that can estimate your box/bag size for you, but I found this tool although handy, to be not entirely accurate. You might be better off finding out how many litres is in a box based on its dimensions.

*Chip Packet Project Tweed Coast also takes your used chip bags. They get turned into amazing items like blankets for the homeless and bags. They need to be cleaned beforehand (see instructions here). We’re currently working on a new public location for these bags to be picked up.

Prepare for my pick up

Recycle Smart kindly sends reminders via email closer to your pick up date. I just put my bags outside, included instructions in the app on where my bags were located, and even snapped a photo for them.

It’s handy to be as descriptive as possible and to put your bags in an easy to pick up spot so the driver isn’t spending time looking for it.

Pick up

The RecycleSmart driver came by mid-morning to grab it. He weighed it, dumped the items into their own bags, and returned my reusable pink bags.

Then I got a confirmation email saying it was collected, and another letting me know the date of my next pick up next month.

My bags being picked up.

Verdict

I was super happy with the whole experience. The end-to-end process felt seamless. The app was easy to use and the size estimator was a clever, helpful touch. As a Service and Experience Designer, I could see the careful thought that went into every interaction.

Design nerd stuff aside, I am just glad that someone now picks up my hard‑to‑recycle items for the price of two schooners a month. No more hoarding soft plastic bags (although I still have another giant bag in the garage), and no more juggling five different drop‑off locations!

RecycleSmart is a great addition to my wastefree lifestyle. Along with other sustainable habits such as shopping at the bulk shop (shout out to Bare Bulk Foods), using my green bin and worm farm/compost for food scraps, and limiting single-use items, I’m able to keep my red bin usage to a minimum!

Thank you RecycleSmart for offering your services in our area!