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It’s Martin Luther King Jr. Day, which means many businesses and offices are closed.
The day is a federal and state holiday and is celebrated each year on the third Monday of January. There is no mail delivered on MLK Jr. Day, and offices are closed as well.
What about garbage and recycling?
Many garbage disposal companies will not be running today. NYC.gov reports that there is no garbage, recycling, or organics collection on Monday, January 21. The site goes on to say that if Monday is your garbage or organics day, those items should be put out Monday after 4pm, and collection will begin on Tuesday, January 22. In Connecticut, there will be no garbage collection on Martin Luther King’s Day. Since the holiday falls on a Monday, regular waste and recycling collection will be delayed by one day for that week. For many areas, like many counties in Colorado, garbage removal may not occur until the next cycle day.
In New Jersey, however, the garbage will run on a normal schedule with no delay. And in San Diego and Los Angeles, you are advised to set out your recycling and waste containers for collection on your regular scheduled service on MLK Jr. Day.
In general, the trend is that most garbage and recycling collection will take place on Tuesday, June 22. However, to make sure you are not a day late, it will be necessary to check information provided by your local town, city, or state, to ensure that you take out trash and recycling as necessary.
Martin Luther King Jr. Day marks the birthday of Martin Luther King Jr. King’s actual birthday is January 15, 1929; he was assassinated on April 4, 1968. MLK Jr. is famous as a Baptist minister and activist, who was a major leader in the Civil Rights Movement in our nation’s history.
It took years before a bill creating a US holiday in honor of MLK Jr. was finally passed. In fact, the first people pushed for a holiday to be created in his honor just four days after his assassination. The year a bill for an MLK holiday was finally passed was 1983. The first time MLK Day was celebrated was three years later, in 1986.
As History.com points out, it was a struggle to get MLK Day to come into existence. The outlet notes, “it continues to face resistance today in the form of competing holidays to leaders of the Confederacy.”
King is the first modern private citizen to be honored with a federal holiday.