Six months after a state ban against plastic bottles in landfills, Aberdeen residents finally have a convenient place to put their bottles, along with many other recyclables.

The town's curbside recycling program begins today with recycling pickup for residences and small businesses that have a Tuesday garbage pickup schedule.

Aberdeen residents with Tuesday garbage pickup will have recycling collected every other Friday, while residents with Thursday pickup will have their recyclables collected every other Monday, beginning March 22.

Public Works Director Rickie Monroe hopes the program will inspire Aberdeen residents to recycle more and reduce the amount of garbage going into the landfill.

"We just hope that everybody will jump on the bandwagon and recycle as much as they can," he said. "Hopefully, in three to four months, it'll just be something normal."

The brown, 95-gallon roll-out containers allow residents to throw all of their recyclables into one container without having to sort them.

The town will transport the materials to a site on Carolina Road, where American Waste Services will compact the material and bundle it into bales. Pratt Industries, a facility based in Fayetteville, will pick up the bales for recycling.

The town received a $100,000 grant from the N.C. Department of Environment and Natural Resources to start the program.

"We jumped right on it," Monroe said. "We got our paperwork in, and we got approved quickly."

The town will foot the bill for the program now and file paperwork with the state for reimbursement over the next three years.

Monroe said the recycling program will save the town $25 per ton in landfill fees. The town currently pays $42 per ton to dump garbage in the county landfill.

He said he hopes Aberdeen residents will be able to significantly reduce the amount of garbage by recycling, but he realizes that interest in the program may have to develop over time.

"It's just going to be a wait-and-see thing right now," Monroe said.

The town has delivered 2,300 containers since March 3. An additional 330 containers will be delivered over the next three weeks.

Since the town is not requiring residents to sort materials, it is urging them to pay close attention to the program's guidelines, which delineate what materials are acceptable.

The town included copies of the guidelines and a 2010 collection schedule in the town's monthly newsletter mailed with water bills March 1.

Ideal items include plastics with the recycling logo Nos. 1 through 7, glass of any color, aluminum or metal cans (with food rinsed out), cardboard, newspaper, magazines and various types of scrap paper.

The town will not accept items contaminated with biological material or food, Styrofoam, clothing, appliances, wood, batteries, ink cartridges, wax coated paper cartons (such as milk cartons), spiral-bound notebooks, photographic paper, tissues or other types of napkins.

Monroe emphasized the importance of rinsing out cans or bottles containing food materials to prevent contamination.

The town plans to close the recycling site at the Public Works Department on April 1.

Monroe said that implementing the curbside program is much easier than operating an unmanned site because there is more supervision over what materials go into bins.

He recalled several instances where people have dumped their trash at the site.

"We'll be glad to get rid of that," Monroe said.

Monroe added that the curbside program can accept a wider variety of recyclable materials than the site at the Public Works Department.

Anyone who has not yet received at recycling container should contact the Aberdeen Public Works Department at (910) 944-7799 or (910) 944-7012.

Residents can also consult the Public Works Department's Web site, www.townofaberdeen.net/ public_works.htm, to view the program guidelines and a color-coded collection schedule.

Hannah Sharpe can be reached at (910) 693-2485 or hannah@thepilot.com.