Encinitas residents can stop tossing old yogurt and cottage cheese containers in the trash, a local trash company representative told the City Council on Wednesday night.

EDCO Recycling and Waste Collection Services ---- the local garbage collection company ---- now accepts many more plastic items in its curbside recycling bins than it has in the past, said company Vice President Jeff Ritchie.

The change started July 1, and the company is publicizing it in notices with people's trash bills and in a new website video, he said.

"The reason we've held off on adding these materials is we only had one market (for them) ---- China," he told the council.

In the past, they worried that if China suddenly stopped accepting various plastics, then EDCO wouldn't be able to find another market for them, Ritchie said. That's changed, however, and EDCO now believes it could unload the recycled plastics in other Asian countries, including Vietnam.

Previously, EDCO only accepted No. 1 and No. 2 plastics in its recycle bins. Now, it will take No. 1 through No. 7, Ritchie said. People can find the plastic code number on the base of the containers.

In addition to typical plastic containers that hold food, EDCO also will be taking plastic plant pots as long as they have the correct numeric code number on the bottom, he said.

Encinitas residents have single-container recycling where they put all items into one large curbside bin. In addition to plastics, people can put cardboard, glass of all colors, "virtually all clean and dry" paper, and metal cans in their recycling containers, Ritchie said.

They can't put in Styrofoam, or waxed paper products, such as used juice boxes from kids' school lunches, he added.

He gave his presentation to a relatively informal-looking City Council. For some 20 years, the council's had one summer meeting a year where members show up wearing their favorite Hawaiian shirts, and this year Wednesday was the night.

Call staff writer Barbara Henry at 760-901-4072.