Mayor Daniel Brown joined several thousand of his neighbors by signing up for the City of Knoxville's new Curbside Recycling Program.

The City of Knoxville's Public Service Department reported this morning that more that 12,000 households had signed up for curbside recycling, just six weeks after signups for the new program started.

That means the city is now 60 percent of the way to its goal of having 20,000 households taking part in the single-stream recycling program that kicks off in October.

David Brace, deputy director for Public Service, signed Mayor Brown up for curbside recycling.

"I want to recycle and this program makes it very easy," Brown said. "Curbside recycling is something the city has been planning for some time and we're very excited about the interest it has generated."

The program makes recycling as easy as throwing away the trash since residents will no longer have to separate recyclable items. Instead they will just place the items into a cart which will be picked up at the curb every other week by the City's garbage contractor, Waste Connections.

To learn more about the City of Knoxville's curbside recycling program - or to sign up - please visit www.doyourpartwiththecart.com. Knoxville residents can also sign up by calling 311 or 215-4311.

Additionally, the city's Solid Waste Office is hosting a Curbside Recycling Signup Event from 9 a.m. until 3 p.m. on Saturday, June 11th near the Morrell Road Entrance of the West Town Mall parking lot.