Plastic bags and scrap metal need special attention

April 2, 2004

Dear Marti,

I was taking a tour of the recycling center and I saw in the pile for commingled containers that a lot of people left their materials in plastic bags. Can Eco-Cycle recycle those bags?

Just curious,
Peggy

Dear Peggy,

You’re our witness to one of the top five contamination crimes Eco-Cycle deals with at the Boulder County Recycling Center, and I’m afraid the plight of those plastic bags is a sad one—they’re going to be trashed. Sometimes plastic bags come in because folks use them to carry their recyclables to the Center and they drop the full bag in the bin rather than emptying out the loose containers and taking the bag home. Sometimes, as some confessing recyclers have told me, they throw the bags in the bin on purpose because they know we take them at our CHaRM location (Center for Hard-to-Recycle Materials) and they have a hope that we might snag bags coming through and ship them to the CHaRM.

I hate to dash hopes, but that’s not what happens and here’s why: Plastic bags are tricky to recycle, and definitely qualify as a “hard-to-recycle” material. They MUST be a #2 or #4, and they must be clean, dry, and empty. We can’t accept them mixed in with other materials at the drop-off center or at the curb because that would expose them to moisture and food contamination. For this reason, we accept them only at the CHaRM where staff can examine them before they’re dropped off to ensure they meet market specifications. Plastic bags left at the curb or at the drop-off center will have to be landfilled, contributing to our costs and jeopardizing our recycling program, so we’re grateful for all the help we can get to avoid these plastic perpetrations.

 

Dear Marti,

My husband and I keep arguing because he puts scrap metal in our curbside recycling bin, like the aluminum frame for our broken screen door. I keep telling him that’s not okay. He says it’s aluminum, like the cans, so there’s no difference. Please tell us, Marti, which of us is right?

Thanks,
Terry

Dear Terry,

Wow. I feel like an eco-Dear Abby. Well, Terry, you could break out your “nya nya nya’s” and “I told ya so’s” because you are right. But since that might cause marital strife, we should give your husband a break because this is a very common mistake. So common, in fact, that it’s right up there with plastic bags on the list of major contamination issues at our facility. Many recyclers think that since we are taking steel and aluminum cans, that means it would logically be okay to put scrap metal made from the same material with your commingled containers.

There are a couple of reasons why that doesn’t work for us. One is that commingled containers are processed through a system of conveyer belts and equipment that is specifically designed for containers. When a piece of metal comes through, like that framing, it is the wrong shape and has the potential to jam the equipment, possibly ripping the conveyer belts and causing very expensive damage. (Our operations manager can tell you all about it.) The second is, though these products may be made of the same material, they are not going to the same market. That means if your scrap metal does somehow make it through the commingled system without causing damage, it’s coming through at the wrong place and will need to be picked out by hand and taken to the other side of the facility—not exactly the most cost-efficient method and something we cannot do on a regular basis and stay in business. So stop arguing, thank your husband for replacing the broken aluminum screen, (‘cuz that was nice) then lovingly let him know that it can be recycled with scrap metal at either the Longmont or the Boulder drop-off centers. Huh, I COULD do this eco-Dear Abby gig—saving marriages AND the environment.