Contaminated Recycling Loads

Dear Sandy -

Contamination in residential recycling is a constant problem. We run a county-wide residential program near Rochester, NY. The program is nearly 20 years old. There will always be a certain percentage of people who are just difficult and like it that way. They will fight you every step of the way. However, most people will try to do the right thing. It sounds like you have a drop-off situation. The best scenario in that case is to have the site staffed with someone who is helpful and informative. Unstaffed drop-offs are an open invitation to do the wrong thing.

Marjorie Torelli

Western Finger Lakes
Solid Waste Mangement Authority
Lyons, NY

Good signage is key. More pictures increases comprehension. At the University of Vermont's Davis Center, they have several places where trash, recyclables, and compostables are collected. At what must be the most successful spot, which is in the cafeteria, staff has pasted actual items on signs above each receptacle. Students actually take the time to stop, hold up an item and visually match it with the item on the board, and put it in the right container. At another spot, where the signs are text only, I watched some students approach, stand in front of the signs and stare blankly, and then head to the trash container, where it all goes-recycling, compostables, and everything. I know you can't have pictures of everything, but where you can include them as general guides, they help. I have also seen Drop-Off Centers where actual items are literally nailed to a board above each bin.

Tell them WHY you want them to rinse and more will understand that you're not just being picky. At our MRF, recyclables are sorted mechanically and by hand. I see comprehension in people's faces when I tell them the two main reasons for rinsing out containers:

1. There are people in there and if you rinse out your containers it makes it a much less unpleasant job to hand sort.

2. Food is considered a contaminant by recycling companies that buy our recyclables. If there's too much, there's a chance that they will either reject the load-in which case it gets landfilled-or they reduce what they pay us. Our recycling program depends on those funds to keep going.

Clare Innes
Marketing & Communications Manager
Chittenden Solid Waste District
1021 Redmond Road Williston, VT 05495
(802) 872-8100 ext. 207
Fax: (802) 878-5787
www.cswd.net 

I think this also shows the need to continue to develop sustainable local markets for recyclable/reusable materials, and to have additional producer take back programs. Every one of the things listed as "contaminants" is completely reuseable or recyclable. For instance, sneakers could go to a clothing/shoe recycler (i.e. Goodwill or Nike), Scrap plastic and metal (pools, garbage cans, and frying pans) can be recycled, and some e-waste recyclers take vacuum cleaners. I understand that these programs are not available or feasible in all places at this time. And, while some of us have markets for these materials and thus accept them, many of these markets are overseas and have completely crashed in recent months. We're starting to see that the more local the market, the better off it is doing. For specific, more difficult to recycle items, it obviously makes to most sense for the producer to collect and recycle through convenient take back programs. When the public has easy options to do the right thing, they will generally do it (as long as they know what to do). It looks to me that people are dropping off these items because they have some feeling that these items should be recycled...even if they know in the back of their mind that your program doesn't take them. So in your outreach, clearly provide the options that now exist for recycling and reusing these items (however inconvenient they are) while continuing the push for better options for the future. Comprehensive local recycling guides are great resources - I'd suggest expanding the information already on your website and then publicizing this as the one-stop shop for all recycling info. There are many out there (Stopwaste.org has a good search tool, for instance), ours is at http://www.naparecycling.com/guide.html .

Tim Dewey-Mattia

Public Education Manager
Napa Recycling & Waste Services
Napa County Recycling & Waste Services
Northern Recycling & Waste Services
(707) 256-3500 x1204
(707) 732-7384 - cell
(707) 256-3565 - fax
www.naparecycling.com

Sandy,

Can you work with your schools and community organizations to give presentations on these issues? I have found that this causes a ripple effect of information. It is difficult to force people to wash recyclables, given the fact that we also educate people to conserve water and some of the materials, such as glass, aluminum and steel end up in furnances where the food residuals aren't an issue. However, if these items are held in your facility, causing insect and rodent issues, many people can understand and accept this. You will never get 100% of the participants to comply; but you can set a goal and cut on the contamination with education.

Marta Keane,

Recycling Program Specialist
Will County Land Use - Waste Services
58 E. Clinton Street, Suite 500
Joliet, IL 60432
815-774-4343
[email protected]

Its tough to get all individuals in the community to follow good recycling procedure, even if they are aware of what that might be. As an alternative, I have often wondered about the technical/economic feasibility of installing an industrial scale cleaning operation at a re-cycling site. That way messy cans could be cleaned and recycled even if citizens are not cooperating. I imagine there is already some process to remove the labels and glue from cans, could it be stepped up a bit to zap out food as well?

Local councils, waste collecting contractors and a waste education organisation employed bin auditors, where paid or volunteer staff check bins before they are collected, bins with non recyclable are labelled so the truck does not take them and the householder is given a note in the mailbox advising why their recyclables bin has not been collected and what they need to do to ensure that it will be collected next time. This was done as a blitz supported with media activity. Good recycler were also rewarded with $100 cash, To win recyclers had to write their name address etc on a 2 litre milk bottle that the auditors may have found or was found at the recycle sorting centre

Have a great day

Regards
Michael Bingham

Byron Shire Council
Environmental Officer
Capital Works Water and Recycling Management Services
02 66267019 0407454699 

Hello,

I hope you will excuse the 'commercial message' since this isn't a marketplace. However, Tim's post & comment about the value of "a one stop shop for recycling information" is relevant here. If anyone wants a free online recycling guide, visit www.recyclopedia.org and then contact me. We provide the basic Recyclopedia free of charge as part of our marketing effort. (Our core business is providing Online Materials Exchanges and Green Community Websites (including the Recyclopedia)). You may have to be patient, as we fit the development of the Recyclopedia Network into the time we have available, with the Online Materials Exchanges & Green Community Websites being our first priority. The basic version of Recyclopedia comes with your own control panel, permitting you to publish and edit your own local/community recycling guide. We host the service, so you don't need to worry about software, upgrades & updates, secure hosting, etc. We provide all that; you provide the local recycling information. We can provide you with a basic version of the recycling guide information that you can then customize for your own area. In future, we will also provide an 'enhanced version' with more bells and whistles, like the ability to include graphics, direct links to places to donate materials, etc.

Regards,
Norm Ruttan

iWasteNot Systems
www.iwastenotsystems.com
1-800-630-7864

When I lived in Japan, they took a pretty hard line toward this issue. If the recycling wasn't washed or sorted correctly, they left it on the curb. If the problem continued, you'd find it back at your door until you got it right. Every resident had a full color poster describing and illustrating what could be included on each collection day, so it made it pretty easy. This of course might make some give up on recycling, but since it was mandatory there, they did the same with trash. If they saw recyclables in the general trash, it stayed on the curb or back at the door. The public embarrassment from having your waste left there day after day was great incentive to get it right.

Berkeley & Albany partnered to produce a reuse guide - their combined communities are small enough to manage a directory. You can download a copy from their web site: http://www.ci.berkeley.ca.us/ContentDisplay.aspx?id=4034

Wanda Redic,

Recycling Program Specialist
(510) 238-6808 Phone
(510) 238-7286 Fax