I just read in one of your handouts that we are asked to not crush our aluminum cans. Why is that?

Signed,
Crushin’ in Niwot

The answer, my friend, is blowin’ in the wind. Okay, I’m sorry, I couldn’t resist. But that really is the answer. Here’s how it works: As you know, aluminum cans are accepted mixed together with all your other food and beverage containers. These materials are not, however, all marketed together, so they must be sorted into their individual categories to be recycled.
 At the new Boulder County Recycling Center, commingled containers are initially separated through an automatic sort system. First, the containers are all placed on a conveyer belt that goes under a magnet where steel (tin) cans are snatched up. After that, the remaining items move over a “shaker,” where the heavy glass shakes to the bottom and the lighter plastic and aluminum containers remain on top. These light materials are then blown off the top by a blast of air which shoots them through a tube to another conveyer for hand sorting. When cans are crushed, they tend to sink with the glass and then end up on the wrong conveyer belt, increasing our production costs when an employee has to pick them off and put them on the correct conveyer belt. So we appreciate it if you help keep those cans light and airy so they can…blow in the wind.

Dear Rosie,
Now that we are all mixing papers together at the curb and at most drop-off centers, isn’t it harder for EcoCycle to recycle them? You had us so well trained to sort, and now we wonder if we’re making recycling harder for you.

Signed,
Well Trained Recyclers

You’re right, you have been so well trained. Boulder County recyclers are among the best recyclers in the nation, providing some of the cleanest, best sorted materials. Now we’re hoping we can teach some old dogs (no offense!) new recycling tricks. Thanks to continued improvements being made in recycled paper mills, there is now a new market for newspaper, office paper/opened mail, catalogs and magazines—all mixed together. So when you mix these items together at many of the drop-off centers around the county or at the curb, you can know that we are actually not sorting those materials into different grades, but rather marketing them as one.
 In addition to these mixed papers, the Boulder curbside program also includes corrugated cardboard and larger paperboard items. These materials are being pulled out of the mix. The reason it makes sense to do this is twofold. First, mixing materials together makes them more cost-effective to collect from the curb and it saves folks the time and resources it takes to get to a drop-off center. The second reason is that the fewer the categories for recycling, the more convenient and the more people participate in the program. The more people participate, the more volume we get and the more resources saved.
 Mixing materials together for more convenience and greater participation is the wave of the recycling future. One day we hope to have you separate your materials into just two categories: wet and dry. Wet is your yard and food waste, dry is your recyclable material. Then it’ll be just as easy for folks to recycle as it was for them to throw things away, and almost as easy to collect from the curb. But don’t worry, your good training will still be needed; to make this program work, it is still very important that recyclers follow guidelines for giving us clean materials.

Dear Rosie,
Can I recycle my old stereo at your new center that accepts computers and TV’s? My small receiver died, and the store where I bought it says it’s cheaper to buy a new one than it is to repair it.

Signed,
Can’t Reuse in Erie