This Wednesday is a red Wednesday, which means trash and recycling pickup. Please make sure you pick up containers after pickup tomorrow night. They do not belong on the sidewalk after tomorrow night. In recycling news, Colonial Heights doubles recycling, saves $250,000 with cart changes.

Officials in Colonial Heights, Va., say they made the right choice when they switched to smaller 68-gallon trash carts and gave every household a 96-gallon recycling cart to begin using July 1, 2012, instead of the standard bin.

A year later, the city’s 17,000 residents recycled an additional 540 tons of materials, and conversely, sent 506 fewer tons of waste to the landfill. At the same time, participation in curbside recycling doubled to 61% of the estimated 6,700 households.

In addition, Colonial Heights saved $250,000 in operating costs that now will be spent to restore a unique old baseball stadium, upgrade the public safety communication system and buy new playground equipment. Bigger savings are expected in future years because there won’t be any start-up costs.

Residents and businesses also benefited from a recycling rewards program. Every time residents put out their recycling cart, they earn points that can be redeemed for coupons, free appetizers and the like at 32 shops and restaurants. The commercial partners reported an extra $18,000 in new business.

“It was a perfect storm of things,” City Manager Tom Mattis said, adding that it all began at contract renewal time for waste hauling. “We were looking for ways to do more, to do better. We wondered what’s possible to save money. That was the core of it early on but in the end that quickly married up with recognizing an opportunity to enhance recycling and be a leader.”