Courtesy PR Extension Office

By Candi Zion

Think Again! November 15th was America Recycles Day; let’s do it properly! You think you recycle? Maybe not. What is a big reason your recyclables aren’t being recycled? Contamination. Your recyclables must be rinsed out; no cigarette butts in your plastic bottles, don’t recycle your spit cans, no diapers and no pizza boxes please! Soiled recyclables are garbage!

And…don’t mix your plastics 1 through 7 together. Here’s why you generally don’t mix plastic… the plastic resins, numbered 1-7 on their bottoms, require separate processing to be reformulated and re-used as raw material as each type of resin melts at different temperatures. Factories that make new products out of recycled plastics are set up to take only specific resin types. When you throw all your plastic together or it’s unclean, it’s considered contaminated. It’s baled by the collector and shipped to the broker and/or manufacturer who inspects it and rejects it because of contamination. Your recycled plastic goes, bale and all, to the landfill.

Lids on or lids off? Lids off. And throw them in the garbage. Lids and caps are usually made of something other than the bottle and are another source of contamination. Leaving caps or lids on a bottle or jug seals air in making baling difficult and dangerous, endangering workers.

So…let’s be responsible recyclers. Clean and rinse, toss all permanently soiled recyclables, throw out plastic lids, know what numbers of plastic are taken in your area, and recycle your plastic bags at the stores with bag recycle bins.

Candi Zion is Executive Director for Recycle Montana, a non-profit corporation which serves as a resource for local governments, businesses and individuals seeking education, technical expertise and networking opportunities to increase recycling in their communities. recyclemontana.org.