In honor of National Recycling Day tomorrow, Mayor Luke Ravenstahl encourages Pittsburgh citizens to recycle more materials at the curbside this month, including fall leaves. The Mayor announced his 'TogetherGreen' recycling campaign last month which expanded the City's single-stream recycling program Citywide. As a result, curbside recycling increased by 40 tons during the first week of the program's launch.

"Our neighborhoods are getting even more involved, recycling more at the curb than ever before," Mayor Ravenstahl said. "Let's continue to meet the challenge and recycle even more items such as fall leaves, magazines and junk mail."

From Nov. 3 to Nov. 29, the City will be picking up fall leaves for composting during residents recycling pick-up days. Leaves must be placed into large paper bags, not plastic bags, in order to ensure that contaminants do not affect composting. The City's department of environmental services expects to collect and compost 200 tons of leaves with already active participation.

The new TogetherGreen single-stream recycling campaign moved to Citywide November 3, 2008, simplifying the recycling process. Now, residents have the ability to place all recyclable materials into one blue bag for processing. The simpler process is not the only advantage for residents. The types of recyclable materials have been expanded to include office paper, mixed paper, catalogs, magazines, junk mail, paperboard, cardboard, and phone books.

"It is an exciting time in Pittsburgh to be thinking black, gold and green," Mayor Ravenstahl said. "All neighborhoods are together now, recycling single-stream at the curb, we are working with our business districts to encourage more recycling, and all three black and gold teams are now recycling in their stadiums. Pittsburgh is TogetherGreen."