Recycling Tips
After working as a docent at the recycling wall for several years, I’ve learned there are still a lot of questions. In this piece I’ll provide some tips and best practices for being a better recycler on Orcas Island. The Recycling Sheet handout includes “YES” items on the top, and “NO” items on the bottom. The “NO” segment is pretty self-explanatory, especially when plastic bags and/or film is involved. Please look for one of the docents if you have any questions.
Let’s start at the top of the “YES” segment.
Aluminum cans -empty beverage only. There is signage above the bins. If you are not sure if an item is aluminum or steel, there are two magnets mounted on the post nearby – aluminum will NOT stick to the magnet, and steel will stick.
Glass goes in dedicated bins. Caps, lids, labels and corks do not have to be removed. Glass may be beer bottles, wine bottles, a jam jar, or even window glass, but NO TEMPERED glass or mirrors. There is signage above the bins.
Corrugated cardboard can cause some confusion. To determine if it’s corrugated, look on an edge – if you see wavy lines, it’s corrugated. No wavy lines, then the cardboard is what we call “cereal box cardboard”, and it goes into mixed recycling bins. Sometimes the corrugation is hard to see, even with reading glasses, but I’ve found if you tear a corner of the cardboard, the corrugation will show.
A couple more things about corrugated cardboard. Please break the box down so it is flat. You do not need to remove tape, labels, or staples. If your boxes are really large and/or long, it helps us if you cut them to fit into the bins, allowing it to easily fit into the baler.
Finally, the cardboard bins are under cover so that the recycler to whom we sell the bundles gets them dry – the price we get is determined by weight, so the recycler on the mainland does not want to pay for water weight.
The hard paper corners that are used to ship a delicate or fragiile item are NOT corrugagted cardboard, they are compressed cardboard. They are recyclable, but go in the Mixed Recycling bins.
This is compressed cardboard, NOT corrugated, and goes into mixed recycling.
Before I go on to Mixed Recycling, let me explain something. In the past, we needed to send all of the above items off island. That meant costly trips on the ferry for one of the big trucks and trailers you’ve been parked next to on an early morning ferry.
Orcas Recycling Services (ORS) has not had to ship glass off island for at least three years, and that saves us lots of weight and bulk in a trailer.
Aluminum cans have little weight, but take up a lot of room when shipped off island.
Corrugated cardboard is both bulky and heavy in a trailer, and steel (tin) cans used to always go into mixed recycling. One trailer trip to the mainland costs about $1700. The fewer trips we make, the more financially efficient we are. We like to say, “we are losing less money”.
The thing that can mess up the well-intentioned recycling effort is contamination. Since glass does not leave the island, it only gets contaminated if you put things other than eligible glass in the bin. The worst thing you can put in the glass recycling bin is a 2-liter plastic soda bottle—it clogs up the machinery and requires a time-consuming and messy repair.
If aluminum cans have other items in the bins and eventually, the bales, it can cause the recycler on the mainland to lower the price they pay us for that bale. The same goes for corrugated cardboard – too much non-corrugated cardboard, and the bale may be refused.
The “YES” segment on the recycling handout is pretty clear about what goes in those two big Mixed Recycling bins. Please make sure to keep Styrofoam items, such as food trays, out of the Mixed Recycling, as well as lids from plastic bottles – those items should be discarded in Trash.
The items “WE DO NOT ACCEPT” in recycling are very important – plastic film, packaging materials, caps, dome tops, straws -each of the above items will contribute to a load being “contaminated”. When that happens, the whole load is treated as TRASH.
The other item that is not recyclable is “shredded paper”. Our family shreds any documents with personal information. I store it in a plastic sack until I take it to the transfer station. Some people think it goes into Mixed Recycling since it is paper – IT DOES NOT! If the bag breaks open at the recycling center it creates a huge mess. Please put bags of shredded paper in the Trash bin.
It may not be considered classic recycling, but did you know you can bring your green waste (leaves, branches, garden waster, etc.) to add to our mountain of green waste? It also means you may not need to purchase a burn permit, or have a burn pile that adds to pollution to the environment and it is a good deal!